Saga Walk

When participating in a Saga Walk, designers physically walk along and annotate storyboards or other representations of iterations of designs.

Saga Walks are helpful when the team needs feedback on concepts that require users to go through them step-by step. They can also be helpful for teams who respond well to opportunities for physical movement. A Saga Walk can allow a team to get feedback on more than one idea at a time, so is beneficial early on in a design process when there are still many design directions possible, and you have representations of mostly complete ideas.

• Supplies: Comic/Story Boards, post it notes, writing implements (such as pens or markers)
• Preparation: Comic/Story Boards should be prepared before the session. These should be laid out atop a large table(s) with space for designers to walk along.

• One designer stands on one side of the table and does a “walk” through the Boards where they explain the ideas on the panels as they currently exist. This designer could be someone who has designed the Boards, or another designer.
• Co-designers then walk along and annotate the storyboards with their thoughts, often “likes, dislikes, and design ideas.” These can be done on sticky notes, and as in the Sticky Noting technique, it is best to write/record one idea per sticky note.
• Some spaces on the story/comic boards can be left intentionally blank to spur thoughts, especially design ideas. Designers can still write ideas for this space on sticky notes, or you can choose to have them work directly on the Boards.
• Once all co-designers have written their ideas, everyone walks back through together as a team. The initial designer who explained the Boards can talk through the notes and ask co-designers explain and clarify their ideas.
• A Saga Walk may include one or more scenarios. 

Walsh, Greg. (2017) Saga Walk: A big and active way to enable co-design. Medium, https://medium.com/digital-whimsy-lab/saga-walk-a-new-way-to-enable-co-design-3d494b24b01e