Improve your chances for digital product or service success with design sprint services from Mightybytes.
Design Sprint Services
We started out wanting to improve the Adopt-a-Beach website. Ultimately though, the ideas generated throughout the Sprint led us to change our thinking about how some parts of the program work. I think the distinction is a key one for us that showed the power of this type of exercise. We started with a problem—crappy website—and ended up challenging some of our assumptions about how the program works (beyond just the website). Overall, we’re going to end up with a stronger program and a better digital experience for our volunteers.
— Jennifer Caddick, V.P. of Communications and Engagement, Alliance for the Great Lakes
Organizations often rush into building digital products and services before knowing whether the people they hope to reach will actually use them. A large toll in lost time and money is extracted from organizations that fall into this trap. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Why not use a proven, test-driven method to gauge effectiveness instead? A Design Sprint will save you money and, within the space of a week or so, help your team learn critical insights that could make or break a product, service, or program you hope to create.
Why Might I Need a Design Sprint?
Grounded in human-centered design practices, a Design Sprint is a multi-day engagement that helps you identify a specific problem then prototype and test a potential solution for a target audience. This can be incredibly useful in many scenarios.
For example:
- You’re unsure of the specific problem you hope to solve.
- Team members have differing opinions about the best solution.
- Your team wants to build consensus among stakeholders on the best path forward.
- You don’t know if users will find your potential solution helpful.
- Detailed feedback from objective third parties can help you chart a more successful path forward.
Our Process
Once we have key project stakeholders at the table, we execute our Design Sprint services in seven steps. Each of these include multiple hands-on exercises.
Here’s our process:
- Identify Stakeholders: During early research, we identify who the problem we hope to solve impacts. We also ask what role might they play in the solution?
- Problem Framing: What is the specific problem we’re addressing for a target stakeholder?
- Understand the Problem: Exercises in this step help stakeholders come to a shared understanding of the problem to be solved. We also begin conceptualizing how we might address it.
- Solutions Sketching: We sketch out ideas to visually convey potential solutions and build consensus on which are the most impactful.
- Prototype a Solution: During this step, our team collaboratively designs a prototype to test the solution.
- User Testing: Using the prototype, the final day is spent conducting user testing. With this process we hope to observe the effectiveness of the solution and decide on the next steps based upon our learning.
- Sprint Retrospective: To wrap things up, shortly after the sprint, we deliver everything captured during the sprint and recommendations on how to continue the process.
Through this process, your team will better understand the problem you hope to solve and learn how viable your proposed solution might be. More importantly, you will answer specific questions regarding how said solution might impact target users. Plus, armed with a prototype and recommendations for how best to proceed, you will have a much clearer vision of your product, program, or service.
Design Sprint Services During COVID-19
While Design Sprints are traditionally facilitated in-person to maximize effectiveness, we use virtual collaboration tools during the pandemic to ensure the safety of our team and clients.
