The team decides on the user experience without a single user ever in the room.
Recognize this situation? Below are the Liberating Structures that change it — a concrete example, and the reason this one fits here. New to Liberating Structures? Here's what it is.
Simple Ethnography replaces assumptions about the customer with direct on-site observation.
For example: For three quarters, the team discusses what the new order flow should "feel like" for the customer. Not a single actual customer has ever been present for one of these conversations — every assumption comes from people who never use the flow themselves as a customer.
Liberating Structures for this situation:
User Experience Fishbowl
User Experience Fishbowl puts real users literally in the center of the room: a small inner circle holds an open conversation about their experience — the good, the bad, and the ugly — while the rest of the team just observes and listens, under two fixed rules: no speeches, and talk to each other, not to the outer circle.
Only afterward does the outer circle get to ask questions. That way the team hears the user experience directly, instead of through an assumption that was never tested.
Simple Ethnography
Simple Ethnography goes a step further than one conversation: participants themselves visit the places where people experience the challenge, observe on site, and collect concrete artifacts — no interpretation, just what they actually see happening.
Those observations then get compared in small groups, under the explicit rule to stick to observable facts. Direct observation replaces the assumption about "what the customer will probably want."
No certification, no lengthy prep — read the steps and try it at your next meeting.
Keep exploring
Browse the full list of 43 structures, or get support if this situation is too complex to facilitate yourself.