Design Sprint Method for a Chatbot
I had set up a website and create a chatbot for examination in the past weeks. After getting used to these platforms by reading some articles and official guidelines and practising (WordPress and Chatfuel), I am going to follow the Design Sprint Method to modify the product from now.
What is Design Sprint?
It is a methodology developed at Google and aims to grow UX culture. They create frameworks but it is also flexible.
“The Design Sprint is a proven methodology for solving problems through designing, prototyping, and testing ideas with users. Design Sprints quickly align teams under a shared vision with clearly defined goals and deliverables. Ultimately, it is a tool for developing a hypothesis, prototyping an idea, and testing it rapidly with as little investment as possible in as real an environment as possible.”(Design Sprint).
This week I will follow Design Sprint Method, the website provides more detail to help people running Design Sprint. There are 6 phases: Understand, Define, Sketch, Decide, Prototype, and Validate.
Phase 1: Understand
User Interviews. I had interview six people about their experience of using the chatbot. According to the interview, 3 of them said they will first consider finding the company information via Facebook, half of them said they usually prefer to visit the official website. People who choose Facebook is because they think the Facebook page provides the latest news. The participant who chooses to check the official website because they think the correctness is higher than the blog or other platforms.
After the interview, I create an empathy map via Miro.
User Journey. This method allows me to walk into the user’s shoes and highlight the pain points, find out the opportunities in order to create or enhance the user experience.
Phase 2: Define
The focuses of the Sprint can be established after Understand Phase. In other words, it summarizes goals, success metrics in this stage.
Design principles. It helps while developing the product, the most important is, it drives product decision and makes sure users having a consistent experience.
Design Principles should be clear and specific. There are 4 design principles Design Sprints provides:
- Effortless: Makes the easy things easier & the hard things possible.
- Insightful: Uses multiple sources and signals to anticipate needs and suggest things that are surprisingly good.
- Attentive: Kid-friendly. Me friendly. Us friendly. Observant.
- Humble: Open to feedback, learns over time.
Phase 3: Sketch
Solution Sketch. I draw the storyboard in 5 mins.
Phase 4: Decide
In this phase, the direction will be figured out and address the points which should be focused on.
Present Solution Sketches. According to the storyboard, the user will get in touch with the company by using the chatbot. They can also choose to message a real person directly, the bot will provide further contact information.
Phase 5: Prototype
In order to create the prototype, I will start with:
- Must-have functions. The bot aims to provide general information including other contact methods, frequently-ask questions. The most important is, users will know someone will get back to them as soon as possible if they have any further questions. I will also make sure the bot will try to help the users even it can not answer the questions.
- Chatbot personality. During interviews, I found that people still hope to be treated kindly even they are chatting with a bot. Therefore, I will generate a friendly and profession bot and record users‘ emotion while testing.
- Chabot Flow. I will develop an information architecture for the bot.
Phase 6: Validate
Usability test.
