Affinity diagramming is a method
for organizing related facts into distinct clusters.
It's a fast and efficient way for teams to collaborate
as they distill and prioritize findings from user research
and strategy or design workshops — among other things.
The process involves a lot of sticky notes
and these three steps.
First, generating ideas during a research session or UX workshop.
Observers or attendees write down their observations or ideas;
each one on a separate sticky note.
Second, organize these into categories
then subcategories.
And third, prioritize the notes in each category.
Start by choosing a room
with walls on which you can stick the sticky notes.
If those don't exist, try using flipchart paper as a base.
Put all the notes on the wall.
This makes the meeting move faster.
You may write a few subcategory names
to help get the sorting started,
and post those in different areas of the room
Include a question mark or parking lot category name
for notes that aren't understandable.
Put some pens and markers
and blank pads of sticky notes on the table.
At the start of the meeting
the leader should explain the process
and set a time limit for each phase.
In the first part, she should instruct attendees
to work quietly and to sort the notes into categories.
If there is no category for a note, make one up.
Write it on a post-it, stick it on a blank area of the wall
and call out the topic name.
If the results are from a usability test,
remind attendees that each color represents a different user.
If the same finding is written more than once
stack them on top of one another
with the most descriptive one showing.
After the notes are sorted into categories
the meeting leaders should direct the team
to then sort those categories
using blank post-it notes to write a subcategory name.
If you finish a category and there are more to do,
move on to another one.
If someone is still working on a category and you're finished,
go help that person, so everyone is sorting
until all the notes are categorized.
Again the leader should set a time limit for the exercise
and call out times as needed to keep people moving.
Candy helps with that, too.
After the subcategories are finished,
people present each category and have a discussion.
This is an important step, and it helps
foster a shared understanding of the findings or ideas.
Next, prioritize the findings or ideas.
This step makes sense of a lot of findings
and it helps direct the team on where to focus next.
There are many ways to prioritize. And feel free to be creative here.
For usability test findings, one way we prioritize them
is to ask people to vote on them, raising their hands to indicate
whether they think each item is of high, medium, or low importance.
Dot voting is another method.
Give each person 3 dots and ask them
to allocate their dots on the findings
they feel are most important.
With UX strategy plans
and design ideas from ideation workshops,
we sometimes prioritize with other methods
like assigning a monetary value to each idea out of a stated budget
or rating elements on a 1 to 7 important scale.
After prioritization, some teams end the meeting
by writing themes on whiteboards.
Others take photos of the wall.
Others track everything in a spreadsheet.
It's important to summarize and communicate
what will happen next with the information
and suggest or assign action items as needed
so your team will use the information to drive design.
This process may seem like a lot of work for your team,
especially for those who are not in UX roles.
I used to try to protect others from what I considered
the messy difficult parts of design and research.
I thought I should do the work for them and tell them the results.
But I learned that insulating team members does them a disservice.
Instead, with methods like affinity diagramming
people learn more about users and good design
and become more invested in UX.
It also builds consensus
and fosters a shared understanding of users.