Part 1
Design Sprint in the daily design process — methodology & history
The story about how to get inspired by Design Sprint framework, integrate it and improve your design thinking in the everyday design process.
Nowadays, Design Sprint and Design Thinking have almost become buzz-words reserved for group activities, extensive meetings with clients and project kickoffs.
But, my intention is to share personal experience on how I incorporated the Design Sprint framework into a daily routine which helped me stay more focused on the bigger picture: the problem and the solution of a product while becoming more organized and productive.
Most of the UX, UI, web, product designers and unicorns working on digital products have, at least once, encountered the following challenges:
- Extreme and tight deadlines — for the entire project, feature or even a component
- Too much attention to the detail — while paying attention to small details and fine tuning-ins makes the distinction between good and great design, sometimes designers forget the bigger picture and become tangled between pixel perfection, overwhelming UX patterns and anything in-between
- The feature focused — I bet that not all projects in designer’s portfolio are the most perfect, challenging or solve the problems for the users but many of us have done projects like this at some point of our careers.
Facing above mentioned challenges is completely fine, and they are just a part of a daily design routine. But there is much more to the design and working on digital products.
One of the most important elements of UX and product design is that we (designers) are actually able to make an impact on people’s lives. We can help them with their every-day tasks, problems that they are trying to solve or needs they are trying to satisfy.
Designers have the ability to propose and (re)design each and every aspect of human life, by adding a value to it or easing user’s pains.
Also, design as a discipline is not something that was invented yesterday, it is a discipline with a long history, theories, and methodologies. One of those methodologies is Design Thinking.
So, let’s start with the basics.
Chapter 1: Design Thinking
Design Thinking is a methodology for creative problem-solving. It is composed of cognitive, strategic and practical processes which help during the design and development of new concepts (cars, furniture, digital products, services etc.).
This methodology was initially born in the 1950s and 1960s in the “Creative Engineering” by John E. Arnold and “Systematic Method for Designers” by L. Bruce Archer, but its application in business and digital product design was popularised by David M. Kelly, the founder of IDEO, who defines it as:
a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.
Besides IDEO, many notable companies use design thinking while creating new products and improving the existing ones. Such companies as Nike, AirBnB, Apple, Google, to name a few.
As for the designers, it became a norm to incorporate design thinking as part of the everyday design process.
Chapter 2: About Design Sprint
So what is the Design Sprint?
Design Sprint is a up to five-day time-constrained framework that uses design thinking methodology to help validate the ideas, solve product challenges, align team vision of a product while setting clear goals and objectives.
It is most widely known as a framework designed by Jake Knapp and Google Ventures but many other designers and organizations have been working on similar concepts in the past decades. All of these concepts have the same core idea and all of them use design thinking as a primary methodology.
Most differences between trending design sprint frameworks are in the time organization and schedule. Google (not Google Ventures) introduces 6-phase sprint that can last for 3 days, while Google Ventures (now GV) opts for sprint that lasts for 5 days.
The latest addition to the Design Sprint frameworks is Sprint Academy’s Design Sprint 3.0 which lasts for 4 days + 1-day Problem Framing Workshop.
The main benefits of a Design Sprint are:
- Gathering of relevant insights, potential problems, and challenges to solve
- Framing and focusing on the specific problem and customer segment
- Creating a unified understanding of the product challenges among all relevant stakeholders
- Providing a sense of the ownership for all parties included in the process
- Generation concepts and ideas to be validated and tested easily
- Reducing the risks of launching an unvalidated product
- Determining the best product-market fit to the users and customers
- Getting valuable insight on the next steps and future product improvements
Chapter 3: Design Sprint Framework
Design Sprint consists of 6 phases:
- Phase 1: Problem Understanding — usually done during the first day of the Sprint.
- Phase 2: Problem Definition — also reserved for the first day of the Sprint.
Phase 1 and 2 include exercises such as Lightning Talks, Exper Interviews, HMW, Long Term Goal definition, Empathy Mapping and Picking a Problem / Target.
- Phase 3: Ideas Sketching — reserved for the second day of the sprint
Phase 3 includes exercises such as Idea Articulation and Crazy-8s etc.
Phase 4: Deciding on a Solution — reserved for the third day of the Sprint or for the second day according to the Design Sprint 3.0.
Phase 4 includes “Museum” exercise when all solutions are laid out, explained and prepared for voting. After the voting is done Storyboarding exercise is also done.
- Phase 5: Prototyping — reserved for the fourth or third day of a Design Sprint
Phase 5 includes definition user flow that is going to be tested, defining the assumptions and preparation of a test plan, selection of prototyping/design/test tools, and trial test.
- Phase 6: Validation — reserved for the last day of a Design Sprint
Phase 6 includes conducting the user testing along with gathering and aggregation of results from the entire sprint. In this phase entire team including the stakeholders has the opportunity to reflect and see if the idea is validated and what the next steps will be.
Details from my personal journey of implementing Design Sprint to a one-person team will be written in the next post.
Meanwhile, I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts and your personal experience with Design Thinking or Design Sprint.
Vildana is experienced UX/UI and Product Designer, Master of Architecture and Urban Planning, currently working with Five. She is the founder of Sarajevo Designs and IxDA B&H Co-Leader.
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