Mini Sprint: A Crash Course in Design Thinking
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Design thinking is a process applicable to many industries. It involves centering user needs and wants to provide them with the best solutions to their problems.
A sprint is an innovation method that utilizes design thinking; it guides a team through the steps to create a possible solution in a short amount of time, hence the name “sprint.”
For this exercise in design thinking, I conducted a mini sprint with my classmate Olivia O’Neil. Sprints already have condensed timeframes, but our workshop was even smaller since we were exploring the ideas and didn’t need to create an actual prototype by the end. Our goal was to find out how we could improve each other’s university experience.
Step 1 - Define
The first stage of design thinking is define. Here you gather information in order to understand the background and set the goal for the rest of the sprint.
I began by conducting an empathy interview with Olivia. Using empathy allowed me to figure out how she feels about various aspects and what I should focus on.
I asked her the question: What is a part of Quinnipiac University that you have struggled or been frustrated with in the past?
Olivia expressed that, as a Media Studies major, she is frustrated with not feeling as prepared for the real world as she should be. Many assignments were writing based and though her classes taught her a lot, she wishes there were more actual projects to practice with.
To dig deeper into the issue, my second question was: Do you think this is a common experience?
Olivia answered yes; she explained that during her capstone class, they went around in a circle to give feedback on the program and many of her classmates wished they had more projects as well.
With Olivia’s responses, I was able to pick out the main problem and begin thinking about what could be done.
I defined the problem as:
Job market readiness is a challenge for Media Studies majors because of a lack of experience with real world assignments and larger projects.
Using this understanding, I could set the goal of my work by creating a How Might We question.
How might we better prepare Media Studies students with skills applicable to their real world jobs?
This guiding statement led me into the next step of the process.
Step 2 - Ideate
Ideate is about coming up with different possible solutions and creating sketches that can be critiqued and iterated on.
I started with what are called Lightning Demos. This is when you find existing products or services for inspiration. I thought about existing opportunities for real world practice at Quinnipiac such as the school newspaper called The Chronicle, Quinnipiac social media, and The Agency, a class where students work with real businesses.
Using this basis, I created some sketches.
The first idea is simply what Olivia and her classmates had mentioned: adding more projects to the course content.
The second idea is encouraging involvement in existing areas like The Chronicle or QU social media.
The third is to involve real companies/businesses like The Agency does.
The fourth is classes having their own social media accounts shared among the students and they have rotating tasks to complete.
The final idea is a website for finding projects to work on.
Step 3 - Decide
After brainstorming multiple ideas, it is time to choose the best one, or the best parts, to move forward with. To do so, you must acquire feedback from other people.
I presented my sketches to Olivia. She had the idea of making The Agency a required course for students rather than one you have to apply to. There could be different levels for different years.
She liked all my sketches, in particular the fifth one with the project website. In total, she asked if there was a way for me to combine them all for my prototype.
Step 4 - Prototype
Now with feedback, you can reiterate your ideas and clean them up for an actual prototype.
I took the main parts of my sketches and fitted them together the best I could.
I started with a page that lists available projects to choose from. They each have a title and description and also show how many students voted to work on that one.
The next page is the project overview. It again has a description as well as necessary skills for the campaign. There is a list of students and their majors on the bottom.
The third page is the main project area. It shows the different students assigned to each section. I opened up the social media component in a side box to show how they have set goals and decided on tasks to do for their role.
Step 5 - Test
One of the most important parts is this test section. The user feedback here will decide how far back you need to go in the process to fully achieve your goal.
I sent Olivia my prototype and she responded with her thoughts.
What worked?
Detailed, thought example project ideas helped understanding
Liked being able to work on a certain area based on major
Liked voting idea a lot
What could be improved/Ideas
Add color
Numbers for the pages
Name for app or website
Questions
Would this be for an Agency-like class? Would students work together?
Would the professor connect this to Blackboard? Like a website or app?
What do the colors on the social media section mean? Recommend a color key
Olivia’s feedback was very valuable and provided great insight. Some of the things she mentioned I had thought about but others were new.
In the end, I felt that we worked together well to navigate the steps of the design thinking process and practice the sprint method of creating user-centered solutions.
Presentation
Everything mentioned here in my post can be found in a complete slideshow presentation. Simply click the button below to view the final pdf!
