During the planning stage of the project, a two-day workshop was foreseen for partners and stakeholders (innovation agencies that would like to adopt the UX Challenge initiative to some extent) to discuss the ways to transform this initiative into a widely accepted innovation support mechanism for companies. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 restrictions, this plan had to be rethought and two separate online workshop sessions have been set for instead.

The first session took place on 28 April 2021 with project partners sharing their insights into the ins and outs of the initiative, what could work and what should be avoided in order to attract other innovation agencies to utilize it. Different ideas have been presented: from changing the theme or the subjects of the initiative (not focusing on UX and digital products or SMEs only) to going more internationally.

All the partners have expressed willingness to continue with the initiative, however, the lack of resources has been universally declared as one of the biggest obstacles to move forward with more UX Challenges in the future.

What is more, the online format of the UX Challenge events has been seen as a bigger advantage rather than a disadvantage, as it allowed solvers from the whole country to take part in the initiative since they did not have to travel to the event. It was also considered to be easier to manage than the event with people in some venue.

It was also noted that the experiment part of the UX Challenge, where companies had to voluntarily participate in the Random Control Trail in order to be able to get solution for their UX challenges, made it more difficult to attract companies and convince them to sing up for the experience.  

Once partners shared their experiences and insights from organizing UX Challenges, some thought patterns have been indicated and chosen for further discussion with stakeholders that is planed for 19 May 2021.