What I learned from hosting last week’s practical layout workshop

Last week, I hosted what I plan to be the first in an ongoing series of online workshops. Overall, the event went well, and here’s what I learned and how I’ll improve things next time.

My friend Paul recommended that instead of writing another full-length book, I should spread my design education content across as many media and platforms as possible. He suggested that, say, I have material about how to improve layout design.

• I might host an in-person event or an online workshop.
• I could make a video course and sell it on my website or Skillshare.
• I may turn the script into an e-book to sell on my site or Amazon.

Then, I could repeat the process with other topics. I’ve heard Paul say plenty of stupid things, but this idea sounded plausible. After coming back from the summer break, I spent a few weeks working on content for the first topic and an online practical layout design workshop.

Marketing and sales

This was my first time producing an online workshop. Not knowing how well it would be received, I only marketed it to people who follow me on Bluesky, LinkedIn, and Mastodon, or who read my blog. Geoff kindly wrote a promo post on CSS Tricks and Andy included it in The Index, his Piccalilli email newsletter.

According to my survey of attendees, 60% heard about the workshop on my blog, 20% from LinkedIn, 10% from Bluesky, 10% Mastodon, and 10% somewhere else. This time, I didn’t email my 1300 newsletter subscribers, so I expect that might’ve made a difference too.

I sold tickets at £69, which is the same price as one of Paul’s two-hour workshops and hit my unambitious goal for ticket sales. Like Paul, I offered an add-on session for an extra £29, but no one opted for that, so I likely won’t offer it again.

Only one person said the price was “somewhat” fair. Everyone else felt it was a good value.

Setting up

Paul uses Google Meets for his online workshops. I’ve never used Google Meets for anything, so instead I opted for Zoom Webinars, as I use Zoom a few times a week for client meetings. I liked the familiar interface, the ability to overlay my camera video on top of the screen sharing, and how Zoom recorded the session to the cloud.

I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t see attendees’ camera videos, and the usual chat was replaced by Q&A. It often felt like I was talking to myself, and it wasn’t easy to judge people’s reactions to what I was saying. I’m told that I could’ve changed those settings when I scheduled the webinar, so I need to look into that.

I have a Zoom Workplace Pro subscription, so paying for one month of Zoom Webinars costs me £64 excluding VAT. If this idea takes off and I run more workshops, I’d consider paying annually to save myself a few quid.

Presenting

I used my MacBook Pro and iPad Pro to present the workshop, running Zoom and my Keynote slides on my laptop and my notes on the tablet. Switching between apps was initially fiddly, especially since I had Keynote running in full-screen mode. It also meant that the Zoom Q&A was often hidden from view. Before my next workshop, I need to experiment with using my iPad Pro as an external monitor for the MacBook Pro so I can keep Zoom visible.

I decided to use my iPhone as a Continuity Camera to film myself, as it gives better resolution than the MacBook Pro camera. I also used my AirPods Pro for headphones and a microphone. Listening back to the recorded audio, next time I’ll try the DJI lavalier mic I use for my YouTube videos.

Demonstrating

I’d split the two-hour workshop into six chapters, each starting with a Keynote deck and then sharing my screen while I built layouts in Sketch. I’d pre-prepared these Sketch files so I could make the demonstrations appear smooth, and this went well. I only wish I’d used duplicate files for the demonstrations, as Sketch’s auto-save meant going back to the original state of the files was impossible. I won’t make that mistake again.

Getting feedback

I asked everyone who attended to complete a brief survey at the end of the workshop. 50% did. Seventy-five per cent said they’d attend a future workshop, and the rest said they might, depending on the topic. Comments were overwhelmingly positive, including:

I loved the mix of slides, cultural background, and practical sessions in Sketch.

And

Enjoyed the course. As a developer, I would also like to see how some of these designs translate to mobile.

That’s fair. I didn’t cover small-screen designs during the time we had. That’s possibly a topic for another workshop.

Final thoughts

I thoroughly enjoyed working on the content for this workshop. In fact, I didn’t get through everything I made, so I’ll have that for when I make a video version. I also enjoyed the event, although there are plenty of areas I’d like to improve on for next time, including:

1. Broader marketing and sales
2. Improved sound quality with a DJI mic
3. Different Zoom set-up so I can see attendees
4. Better MacBook Pro and iPad Pro configuration

After that, my plan is to host more in-depth workshops with deeper dives into topics such as responsive layout and techniques, including the use of compound and modular grids. However, my next step will be to adapt the content from this workshop into a video course for Skillshare and other platforms, and to transform the script into a short e-book.