Ready for Your Design Sprint?
Design thinking… design sprint… you may be thinking, how many terms are there? The truth is: plenty more. However, this week we’re only going to focus on these two as I explain the grave importance of understanding one of the main hidden job traits of a graphic designer; and that is to problem solve.
Design Thinking
As discussed in an earlier blog post, design thinking is a problem-solving method in graphic design. It outlines the step-by-step process for creating a design and solving the problem at hand. However, the design thinking process can apply to much more than appears to amateur designers. Plus, one of the most effective ways to implement design thinking is through a design sprint.
What is a Design Sprint?
A design sprint is the process of coming up with an idea and prototyping it within the next few days. The design sprint is highly efficient, takes less time, and still provides promising insight into how consumers would react to your tested product. Additionally, design sprints are highly common among bigger businesses including:
Slack, Uber, Lego, Air BNB, Facebook, Dropbox, etc.
These companies use design sprints to test out the many ideas that they have to improve productivity and sales. Completing a design sprint is a big challenge so ensuring you have the resources, employees, time, and motivation to get it done is imperative.
My Design Sprint
Now that we understand what a design sprint is, allow me to introduce you to my very own design sprint project. The goal of this project is to identify and solve a problem that one of my classmates was having at Quinnipiac. Before learning about design sprint and design thinking, I would normally take a 2 or 3 step process in order to try to find a solution, however now I know that the process is actually a lot longer than that.
Picture this: I’m a freelance magazine writer/designer. The Chief Editor has just asked me to do a design sprint before the next deadline in a few days. My task is to improve the educational experience at Quinnipiac in any way that my partner mentions. See my process presentation here.
Step 1: Define
The first and arguably the most important step in the design sprint process is to decipher what the actual problem. Defining the problem accurately and thoroughly is important because it will help you gain a stronger understanding of what your job as a designer will be.
Just like this image, I sat down with my partner to discuss her issues with the school. She gave me a few things about the school that she would improve, bringing in valuable points and making it difficult for me to narrow it down to $1.
Example: The problem I defined was - Connecting with other graduate students is a challenge for Alyssa because there is no place where all grad students can meet.
The HMW statement (How Might We…) was - How might we ensure more graduate students become connected with each other during their time at Quinnipiac?
Step 2: Ideate
This is likely my favorite part of the design sprint: the sketching. Ideate means to bring your ideas to life using sketches. I spent a lot of time sketching my ideas in order to my them clear, concise, and easy to read when presenting. I wanted to ensure that the client could give proper feedback in time before the prototyping stage.
Take a look at some of my sketches:
Step 3: Decide
After sketching, it was time to hear some feedback and make some more changes. During the design sprint, it’s important to note that although the process is shorter, you will still have multiple rounds of feedback and change. This step is the first time that the client gets to see what I’m brewing. My classmate Alyssa was very happy with some of the ideas. She decided on the idea to create a graduate students suite somewhere in the student center where the other ones are.
Step 4: Prototype
Finally, the prototype stage is the last one which should represent your final project after two rounds of feedback and your own round of brainstorming and research. Take a look at my prototype here:
The inside of the graduate student suite features desks for students to stop by and do some homework, there are chairs for relaxing, an event calendar to encourage campus involvement, and a snack/game table to encourage interaction.
Overall, this design sprint was relatively successful because it allowed me to take the necessary steps to ensure that my creation is solving the problem. Design Sprints are riveting but can also be stressful. My recommendation is to gather your best team of hardworking, timely and creative employees to set your company up for success.