Girl's Day
During the pandemic, we all got used to conducting and attending meetings, workshops, conferences and other events online by using video-conference systems. Collectively and iteratively, we developed a new culture of communication in this format. Keeping our microphones closed while others were talking, using a "raise hand" feature or other means of indicating when we wanted to speak. Some people seemed to have carefully selected of a suitable background in their homeoffices and a broad range of home-libraries appeared on our screens - others fell back on using virtual or blurred backgrounds.
For our Girl's Day Workshop, we had to take it a step back and figure out a way to conduct an interactive workshop with girls* between the ages of 11 and 13 - while taking into account that most of them would not have their cameras and microphones open during the event.
We decided to use an interactive conceptboard (InVision Freehand) and prepared interactive fields on the board that the girls could use to contribute their ideas.
We were surprised by their spontaneous non-verbal delibaration which led to the establishment of a new means of communication: by picking up elements on the board, dragging it to the side of the interface mock-up and moving their mouse over the element, they indicated their intention to enter it into the interface mock-up. When the others of the group agreed, they joined their mouse pointers on the element until one took the initiative and entered it as input on the interface mock-up. This way, a non-verbald discussion and collective decision-making took place.
Have a look at the video to see yourself how this played out.