A design sprint is definitely not as scary as it sounds! Generally, anything sprinting related you could count me out of, but a design sprint I’m in! A design sprint is a rapid-fire way of ideating rapidly and ‘sprinting’ through a design process. In the studio, we practised a design sprint, by designing the ideal wallet for another person. In our Studio class, we followed the design process of...
Empathise
Define
Ideate
Prototype
Test
Design Sprints are one of the many activities that a designer may use in order to help guide their overall big picture design process. Following a process such as doing a design sprint is an effective way of rapidly moving through a process quickly in order for a designer to reach the best possible solution fast. This process is based on the double diamond design framework. (Design Council. 2020) This framework breaks down the seemingly overwhelming design process into 4 simple steps, Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver. The design sprint process goes through each of these 4 steps however, it is not in-depth and can be done over the space of 30 mins rather than months and years. It touches on each phase quickly. This is my design sprint on designing a wallet!
Design Council. (2020)
Step one was all about ideas! Lots of ideas, in order to get me thinking about possible designs of a wallet.
The second step was the interview phase to find out more about the person who I would be designing the wallet for. It was interesting to learn the types of questions to ask that result in you getting as much information about the person as possible. I learnt that sometimes what people say may have nothing to do with the wallet but will help you to design a wallet that they didn’t even know they needed.
The next phase was to take the findings from the interview and process the information. From conducting the interview I learnt that for my partner a wallet actually wasn’t a necessity. It was then also important to take a stand with a point-of-view and really work out exactly what the ‘brief’ was going to be, what did my partner need in a wallet?
It was finally time to start putting ideas to paper. I quickly sketched 5 ways to meet the needs of my user. Proposing both out of the box designs, and more everyday designs, because after the rapid ideating, it was time to get the first round of feedback, which helped me to further refine and decide which idea to move forward with. From this, I learnt that my partner really liked the ring wallet idea, as she didn’t take her rings off and would love to not have to carry a wallet all the time.
I then wrapped up the project by coming up with the final solution and rapidly prototyping with very basic materials, from this I then received feedback from the user, which will help me in the future if I was to continue this endeavour.
Ring Wallet Prototype
References
Design Council. (2020). What is the Framework for Innovation? Design Councils evolved Double Diamond https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/news-opinion/what-framework-innovation-design-councils-evolved-double-diamond