The Design Sprint — Day 1
This is a part 1/5 series of my experience participating in the design sprint as a designer. If you are interested, please read about the rest of the sprint here.
Introduction
I recently had an opportunity to become a design resident at Method, a Global Logic company. I am very excited about this chapter of my life! Not only I can learn from the industry’s best designers, but I also have a chance to work on a project to solve a real-life problem.
Method is rapidly growing and hiring many new employees who work remotely. It became harder to learn about each other and engage in such an environment. The task is to create a tool that will solve this problem and make the remote environment more fun and engaging.
We were introduced to the design sprint — a unique way to quickly validate ideas and test them before building a finished product.
How does it work?
The Design Sprint starts with a big challenge, a team, and a clear calendar. Our team consists of five residents — a strategist, a designer, and three software engineers. Each day we have an expert share their knowledge and give us directions on how to approach different tasks. In five days we have to:
- Understand. Map out the problem and pick an area of focus.
- Ideate. Sketch out competing solutions on paper.
- Decide. Make decisions and turn your ideas into testable hypotheses.
- Prototype. Hack together a realistic prototype.
- Test. Get feedback from real live users.
Day 1 — Mapping
Our first day of the design sprint started on Friday (Monday was a day off due to Memorial Day). During our first session, we focused on discovering and defining the problem to be solved before diving into how we might solve it. In order to gain the necessary insights, it was crucial to empathize with the people we were designing for so we could understand the users and the context surrounding them (thoughts, emotions, motivations).
As homework prior to the first day, we each had to conduct a 1:1 interview with an employee of Method. To do so, we generated a set of questions to ask them. Talking directly to the people we’re designing for was a great way to understand their needs, hopes, desires, and goals.
The information we gathered during the interviews was helpful to start synthesizing our learnings. To unpack the desired outcomes and pains that the Methodites currently face, we created an Empathy Map and an Affinity Map. (We color-coded the insights from each person to visually see the familiarities between different users).
Later on, during the first day, we also worked on the survey. Many Methodites had a short day before the holiday weekend, that is why we haven’t sent out the survey on Friday. But once we published it on Tuesday morning, we gathered a lot of valuable insights about Methodites and their preferences.
Both interviews and surveys are great tools to understand the users and validate their needs and motivations.
Once we had a full picture of our main target and current pains, we moved on to writing a problem statement. It was crucial to do so before we could start focusing on the solutions. It took us some time to define the best version of it. After some tweaking and voting, we had a winner!
“Methodites need a push towards increased engagement with one another, but the current engagement opportunities can be overwhelming or unknown to newer employees. Solving this will be good because it will improve relationships within Method.”
Conclusions
The first day was a little overwhelming but also fun!
Key takeaways:
- Do not think about the solutions. Learn about the user instead.
- Empathize and listen.
- Do not get attached to the ideas.
This is a part 1/5 series of my experience participating in the design sprint as a designer. If you are interested, please read about the rest of the sprint here.
