If we already have a job as Product / UI/UX Designer we will come to a close with something called Design Sprint. Design Sprint is a form of discussion and the fastest way to come out with a solution. That is why it’s called a Design Sprint when we as a team in product development try to find the fastest way to come out with the solution for the problem we have.
Design Sprint started in google in 2010 when Jake Knapp a Google Venture try to implementation 5 phases to brainstorm a problem and come out with the solution for the business or the product itself.
The 5 Phase is:
Understand
The first phase is understanding by shared knowledge across all participants. Using the form of discussion and lightning talk. Shared knowledge across the business which invited to articulate the problem in business, user, competitor, or technological angles.
There are many methods you can use in Understanding Phase which we will break apart later.
All the understand Methods sure can be like:
- How Might We or HMW
- HMW Sharing and Affinity Mapping
- User Journey Mapping
- Experience Mapping
- How Might We Voting
- User Interview
- Empahthy Building Exercises
- Abstraction Laddering
- Affnitiy Clustering
- Rose, Thorn, Bud
- Dificulty Matrix
- Visualuize the Vote
- Job Stories
- Lightning Talk
- The Icerberg Canvas
- Integrated Data Thinking
- Business to Human
All the methods for phase one can be used to understand the problem which will be brainstorming later and coming out with the solution.
Define
The next phase of a design sprint is Define. Define is when the team evaluates everything they know from the previous phase to establish focus. By defining specific context and desired outcome for the solutions. This phase will conclude when you can choose a specific focus, goals, success metrics, or signal in your Design Sprint.
All the methods for Define are
- Sucess Maetrics & Signal
- Deisng Princples
- The Golden Path
- Futures Press Release
- Pick a target
- personality sliders
- business modal canvas
- Assumptions mapping
- insights, question, ideas
- consider everything at once.
in this phase, we as a team will try to focus and come out with an idea for the problem we tackle. After we come out with the idea we will move into the next phase of the design sprint which is.
Sketch
Sketch in a design sprint is for coming out with the inspiration for the solution in alternative spaces. Afte define the focus group the team or the member of the design sprint will try to generate and ideas for consideration. And from there will try to narrow down the ideas of a group to a single articulated solution.
in this phase, we used methods like
- Comparable problem
- Boot up note taking
- Crazy 8’s
- Crazy 8’s Sharing and voting
- Solution Sketch
All the ideas which come out from the individual members in the design sprint will get chosen in the next phase.
Decide
All the gathering ideas which happened in the previous phase will be decided in this phase of a design sprint. The team will finalize de concept and try to prototype the idea. Each member of participant will share their solution sketch, and the team will find consensus on a single idea through decision-making exercises. in this phase, we will aim to final direction of a design sprint.
The method that can be used is
- Present Solution Sketches
- Assumption and spinrt questions
- dot vote
- silent review and vote
- Decision matrix
- heatmap voting
- note and vote
- rumber or all in one
- action planning
This is where we try to pick one to move into the next phase which is something you always hear or read.
Prototype
In the prototype phase, we will work together and create a prototype for the concept we choose in the previous phase. This is when many decisions are made around, and what exactly the concept is. We will aim to create a prototype that is just real enough to validate the problem and also the solution.
Prototype in design sprint really a different way than in the standard of product development. This phase is for a facade of the experience you have envisioned in the previous phase. More like we created minimum viable products. This is means mapping out the exact flow for the experience and building the steps we want to test. There is no need to build a full product or to solve every flow of our products
We can think more like experience in order to test out a hypothesis. This means we have to think critically about what we build in order to get data to validate or invalidate the hypothesis which is the last phase of a design sprint.
The method in this phase is
- Storyboard
- Assign Tasks
- Prototypinh tools
- tips for the stage
- Create a Kanban Board
- Narrate the storboard
- instant collboration using mural or google docs
- Prototype playback
- prototyping with version control
- why, how, prototype, iterate.
After this we will move into the last phase of the design sprints.
Validate
In the last phase called validation, the design sprint member will put the concept to the test and get feedback from the user. This is to validate or invalidate the concept to improve on, either way for we made a progress.
Of course, there is still a method we can use to validate in this phase
- Usability Study
- Cognitiva Walkthroughs
- Stakeholder Review
- Thenical Review
- Sprint Concluision: Recap and Next Steps
- Recuruit Interview Subjects
- PLlan the INterview
- Master the inverview
- 5 act Interview
- Score the interview
Sometimes validating or invalidating will note same which what you think, but this is a product development cycle which is an improvement from the data and by the data.
You can start and pick which method you can use in your design sprints. No need to use all the methods but pick the one you think is the most suitable for your cases.
