exercise · all tools
User Experience Fishbowl
Depth · what it can open●●○○2 — reflective
Holding · facilitation2 — facilitator
Trust · group readiness★any
Disclosure · what is sharedoptional
A small inner circle of people with direct lived experience of something talk candidly among themselves — not presenting, conversing — while the larger community listens from an outer circle, then feeds back questions in small groups. First-hand know-how crosses the room without slides or spokespeople.
Hold with care
- Inner-circle candor is the value — protect it from turning into a panel Q&A or a performance review of the speakers
Practical
- Time
- 35-70 min
- Group
- 15–∞ · small-group, large-group
- Settings
- in-person, online
- Materials
- Inner/outer circle of chairs; microphones for large rooms
- Mechanisms
- dialogic-encounter, perspective-taking, feedback-mirroring
- Change scope
- state · repeatable
Origin & where it lives
Henri Lipmanowicz & Keith McCandless — Liberating Structures (fishbowl-format family)
Instructions: open online · CC BY-SA 4.0
In this directory via Liberating Structures
status: checked · added 2026-08-25