This week we went through some techniques and methods used in Design Sprints. We would then complete a design sprint of our own in teams.
The problem we were given was “Serious pressure on accident and emergency departments in UK?”
First we discussed some common issues when visiting a hospital, such as: feeling lost, conditions of waiting rooms, lack of consideration and information.
To get started on our design sprint we had to learn exactly what it is. A design sprint is a method of design thinking, used to solve complex problems in teams through rapid prototyping, and qualitative testing with targeted users.
Before beginning a design sprint, it is commonplace to complete a design audit. A design audit is a quality assurance activity, it’s goal is to review products and evaluate them from a UX perspective to ensure it meets accessibility, UI component continuity, and design unity requirements.
Some things that would take place in the design audit stage are:
- Interviewing key stakeholders, people leading the project
- Reviewing all existing documents
- Reviewing all relevant user research
- Reviewing the current designs
- Identifying or reviewing core use cases
- Understand
- Define
- Ideation
- Decide
- Prototype
- Validate
The Design Sprint
Stage 1- Understand
After getting into our teams of 3, we discussed and began to understand the brief given to us. We started with using the “How might we?” method. This method involves coming up with an angle around the problem starting with the question, ‘how might we?’
How Might We
We came up with the following questions for the problem, “Serious pressure on accident and emergency departments in UK?”,
- How might we ease the pressure of staff in the hospitals?
- How might we make the waiting process less stressful?
- How might we help doctors be more efficient in consults?
- How might we make emergency waiting rooms more efficient?
Empathy MappingĀ
Empathy mapping is a process used to outline how a user might feel or think when going through the current problem. In a empathy map you typically would have 4 sections. One would be dedicated to what the user would say, another what they think, another what they feel and the last, what the user would do.
We were given 30 mins to complete this task.
The image above is of the empathy map we created. I think this was a useful exercise to really focus and imagine going through the problem from a users point of view.
User Journey Maps
Next was to create a user journey map. A user journey map is a more complex mapping exercise, detailing all the steps of the users journey through the problem.
This the map we created. I think this was a useful exercise and helped us outline what our user requirements should be and define what it is our app should do.
App Development