ThemeTech & the online room
CardCard 8 of 63
Questions5 to explore

Devices

Expectations of what devices participants need

What devices participants are expected to bring shapes every technical decision you make about the session.

A participant on a phone has a small screen, may not be able to use a collaborative whiteboard easily, and is likely to be more distracted. A participant on a laptop with two screens can manage a shared board, chat, and video at the same time. These are different experiences of the same session, and if you have not considered them, the design may not work for part of the group.

Device expectations need to be communicated before the session, not assumed. If the workshop requires participants to write on a digital canvas, to open documents, or to run particular software, they need to know that in advance and have the chance to prepare.

Online, specificallyIn a physical room a chair and a pen are the only tools participants need to show up with; online, the device, screen size, and software access someone has at home determines what is actually possible for them in the session.

In a remote session

The same building block as it plays out online: how experienced facilitators tend to handle it when the room is a screen. Illustrations to react to, not rules to follow.

State requirements in the invite

Good facilitators list the device requirements in the welcome package or invite: laptop or desktop preferred, whether a phone is workable, whether a second screen helps.

Test on the expected device

They test their tools on the devices participants are likely to use, not just on their own high-spec setup, to catch usability issues before they become live problems.

Design for the lowest common denominator

They build the session so it works on a single laptop with no second screen, then treat additional devices as a bonus, rather than designing for an optimal setup and leaving some participants behind.

Ask during registration

For sessions where device type matters significantly, they ask during registration what participants will use, so they can adjust or flag issues before the day.

Questions to plan around

Use these on your own or in a group. There are no right answers, only better conversations.

What devices will participants realistically be joining on, and have you verified the session works on all of them?
Have you communicated device requirements clearly before the session?
Does your shared workspace or visual tool work on a phone screen if someone joins that way?
Are there participants who may not have reliable access to the software or tools you are planning to use?
What will you do if someone joins on a device that cannot support the planned activities?

What trips people up online

Tools that work beautifully on a facilitator's dual-monitor desktop can be unusable on a participant's phone or a low-powered laptop; always test on a representative device.
Participants rarely flag in advance that they are on a phone or a borrowed device; asking the question during the tech introduction reveals these cases.
Requiring software to be pre-installed is a friction point; browser-based tools have significantly higher participation rates because there is no installation step.