1Volume 1 of 4
Scopes and Soundings
Framing the work and finding out: the methods of the frame and discover stages.
Playbooks for design work in education
Design methods for education and edtech, in the order a project meets them. 223 methods in four volumes, each with what it is, the steps to carry it out, what it produces and a template to copy.
All inspirations
Why the playbooks exist
A method needs more than its name
Design work in schools and edtech is done by teachers, curriculum and assessment officers, product managers and policy teams as often as by designers. They are asked to run a co-design workshop, test a prototype or hand a feature over for build, and the method arrives as a name: a journey map, a design sprint, a heuristic evaluation.
A name is not enough to run one. Briefs and Blueprints sets out 223 methods the same way: what the method is, the steps, what it produces, how long it takes and who it needs, and a template to copy. The methods follow a project from the brief at the start to the review after launch, so a reader can find the ones for the stage they are in.
1
Start from the stage you are in
Eight stages, from frame to sustain, two to a volume, and three tracks used at any stage. Each stage opens on a slide that sets every one of its methods under the question it answers.
2
Steps and template on one slide
Every method has its steps, its output, its time and its people, with the template beside them: drawn where the method makes a canvas, a map or a tree, a table to fill in otherwise.
3
Print it and pin it up
Every template is also an A3 worksheet, with lines for the project, the date and the team, and the steps along the foot. Each stage has a poster of its methods.
Who it is for
People who run design work in education without the title of designer
Teachers and school leaders redesigning a lesson, a space or a programme. Curriculum and assessment teams. Product and policy teams in ministries and edtech companies, and the designers who work beside them. Each method is tagged with the practices that use it, nineteen in all, from design research and service design to instructional, assessment, curriculum and learning space design.
Every entry carries an example from education and edtech, and the examples come from where I work, as they do across this site: schools, ministries and edtech teams. The methods themselves are the design field’s own, checked against nine books on design thinking and practice, so they travel.
Inside a volume
One file, one entry shape, three ways to read it
Every method is set the same way, on one slide with its template. Where the work loops, branches or waits for approval, a flow follows on a slide of its own.
| Where | What an entry carries |
|---|---|
| Every method · the slide | The stage, its place on it and the practices that use it · What it is, and the other names it goes by · The steps · Output, time and people · The template beside it |
| Every method · the panel | An example from education and edtech · The practices or the track · The source it rests on · The question it answers |
| 26 methods · a flow | Where the work loops, branches or waits for approval, on a slide of its own after the entry |
- Slides
- Walk a team through a stage, or present one method with its template. Each slide has a Read more panel with the example and the source.
- Reading
- Press R for the reading version: the stages in order, then the appendices. Appendix A is an A to Z of every name in the set, other names included, each a link to its method.
- Posters
- A poster for each stage, its methods grouped by the question they answer. After it, every method’s template as an A3 worksheet, ready to print and fill in.
- One file
- Each volume is a single HTML file that works offline and prints. Slides, reading version and posters come from the same rows.
What each volume contains
One toolkit, four volumes
Design methods for education and edtech, in four volumes, in the order a project meets them: frame and discover, define and ideate, prototype and test, then deliver and sustain, with three tracks used at any stage. 223 methods, each with what it is, its steps, the usual output, time and people, and a template to copy. Each volume opens as a deck; press R for the reading version, where Appendix A is an A to Z of every name in the set, other names included. Every template is also an A3 worksheet in the poster view.
A companion toolkit of design methods for education and edtech
Briefs and Blueprints
Methods rather than terms: what each one is, how to carry it out, what it produces, and a template to copy, from the brief at the start of a project to the review after launch.
2Volume 2 of 4
Clusters and Concepts
Making sense of what was found, and generating options: the methods of the define and ideate stages.
3Volume 3 of 4
Props and Pilots
Making ideas real enough to test, and testing them: the methods of the prototype and test stages.
4Volume 4 of 4
Handoffs and Habits
Delivering, sustaining and running the practice: deliver and sustain, the three tracks, and the software.
How the playbooks were designed
The decisions behind them, and what each one costs
01Cut where the stages meet
Decision
Four volumes of two stages each, in the order a project meets them. The three tracks, collaboration, documentation and operations, sit together in the fourth, with the software.
Why
A team in the middle of a project is in one stage, sometimes two. A volume that holds those stages, and no others, is the one to open.
Trade-off
The fourth volume is a mixture: two stages, three tracks used at any stage, and an appendix of tools. A track’s methods are used throughout a project, but they are filed at the end.
02The template beside the method
Decision
Every method’s template sits on its own slide, beside the steps. Only the 26 methods with a flow get a second slide.
Why
A reader never turns the page to find the template, and every slide carries something to look at. A slide for each template would have made about 340 slides; this makes 301.
Trade-off
On a slide the template is small. It is drawn at full size once, on the A3 worksheet in the poster view.
03Every name finds its method
Decision
Appendix A lists every name in the set, 638 of them, each method’s other names among them, and every one is a link that opens the method’s slide, in whichever volume holds it.
Why
A method goes by several names. A split test is an A/B test, and a 15% solution is one of the Liberating Structures. A reader should not need the set’s name for a thing to find it.
Trade-off
Each volume carries the whole set’s rows and drawings, so that its index can see the others. The four files are nearly the same size, about 0.8 MB each.
04Standing on its own
Decision
The playbooks hold methods, not terms, and point nowhere else. Where a method shares its name with a word in the phrasebooks, a persona, a wireframe, an A/B test, the two are not linked.
Why
The phrasebooks say what a word means. A playbook says how to do the thing. A reader running a usability test needs the steps, not the vocabulary.
Trade-off
A reader who wants the word’s neighbours, the terms it is confused with, has to look it up in the phrasebooks themselves.
The methods
Every method in the four, in one A to Z
223 methods from all four volumes as one list, each with what it is, the other names it goes by and its stage, and a link that opens its volume at the slide that holds it.
Playbooks for design work in education · One toolkit · four volumes · 223 methods · October 2026
Singapore