The way we run sessions makes a huge difference to young people’s experience of our design process - and to the quality of data we gather in our sessions.
Positive experience
It’s important that young people’s experience of sharing is as positive as possible.
Barnardo’s has a wealth of expertise in creating comfortable and positive conversations with young people that enable honest sharing about their needs.
For example, we know that endless question-and-answer data collection doesn’t work well with young people. We aim for our design sessions to be fun and varied. We don't pack too much in, and typically use a variety of engaging exercises to keep the energy up. Our toolbox of child-centred exercises grows every day; we are never short of great tasks to try.
Creating a great session
Creating rapport and running good exercises is only the start of creating a great session. Moderators have a lot to think about, including:
- what spaces are best suited for the young people’s and session needs
- what materials to bring
- timings and session flow
- key objectives and probes for each section
- gaining verbal consent
That's a lot of plates to keep spinning. And session guides aren't always helpful; they can be too long (nobody wants to be flipping to page 5 in the middle of an important comment from a young person). Everyone also approaches session guides differently, which means teams have to relearn lessons (e.g. on timings, flow, reiterating consent) again and again.
Session guide template
Based on feedback from young people and moderators, we’ve prepared a session guide template for designers working with children and young people.
Our aim is to:
- support consistent, ethical session design - well structured, well timed, well planned, and including key ethics points like consent confirmation, end of session check-ins
- enable moderators to effectively spin many plates by keeping the guide format simple, visual and usable - so they can put more focus on the young people, not the tasks
Our session guide template is a starting point. You can adapt it freely but thoughtfully to match your project's aims, content and audience.