Small- and mid-sized companies often lack a design process that leads to successful, usable products. Technical communicators have skills that can help their project teams succeed. Learn how to help your team design software and web pages that work, by following the Five-Sketches™ method. Five Sketches™ was developed for and with cross-disciplinary teams—including technical communicators—from Canada, the USA, Australia, India, and South Africa. Five Sketches™ walks design participants through a series of individual and group tasks—some creative, some structured, some spontaneous. It ensures you have a clear design problem and business constraints, enough ideas to saturate the design space, a way to analyse and rapidly iterate the ideas, and a ready design that can be validated and approved before developer coding begins. Come learn how Five Sketches™ was developed, how it works, and how you as technical communicators can use it to make successful design possible in your workplace. This is a more detailed version of a presentation from the 2008 annual UPA conference, which was also presented at the Banff Centre for the 2008 annual CanUX conference. Both times, it got excellent audience ratings. This version of the presentation is focused on developing transferrable skills that technical communicators can use to enhance their value in the workplace.

2. I need to help the developers

3. I need to help the developers

13. … find a better way to c lean?” … find a way to build something cleaner?”

14. What is a designer?

17.  Inform  Agree  Generate  Analyse

18.  Inform  Agree  Generate  Analyse

22. Just enough detail  Numbered in red  Descriptive title  Large paper  Only fat-nib markers 

23. ideating Judging experiencing abstract thinking

31. Diffuses the ownership of the ideas You realise that 5 ideas is just a start Shows you the value in your contribution