By the end of day one of the MVP design sprint we’ve clarified, identified and started prioritizing the most important challenges to the business. We’ve also created several proposed solutions by presenting ideas from other websites that we think are useful, as well as a series of sketching exercises (refer back to our day one article for a list)
By now, participants will have placed their 3-step concept drawings around the room for everyone to view on day two. The 3-step concepts are posted anonymously so that everyone can vote on the ideas they think will be the most impactful. To do that, the idea has to explain itself without input from the person that proposed it.
So we begin day two by:
1). Revisiting the sprint questions as a group
2). A gallery walk/voting on their favorite ideas and concepts
3). Deciding on which concepts we want to test
4). Storyboarding
We start the day off with our gallery walk, where we go through the 3-step concept drawings on the wall.
During the gallery walk, everyone is given little sticky dots that they can use to vote for the ideas that they like. Each participant is encouraged to use as many dots as they want and place them next to the ideas they find interesting on each 3-step concept drawing. It may be a button, a landing page, a menu, wording, etc. By the time everyone is done voting, a “heatmap” of the items that the group likes starts to appear
The purpose is to identify the ideas within a 3-step concept that people like the most. The facilitator notes which concepts are getting the most attention and votes.
The facilitator then summarizes the vote results and confirms them with the group. The facilitator will usually ask a question like, “This is what we collectively voted for… Did anyone vote on this for a different reason than I explained?” The idea is to ensure the group is in alignment.
This is where we synchronize a vote. Everyone except the “decider” looks at the concepts that everyone already voted on and places their final vote either on the entire concept or a particular feature within the overall concept they want to test. They then get two minutes to explain why.
If the decider chooses something completely different than everyone else, that’s the direction it will go. The CEO often has a vision or reasons for choosing that they want to test. The leftover concepts, which I like to call collateral assets, are still available for future exploration.
After we decide on the solutions we want to test we can create the flow and screens to support our concepts.
One of the most crucial parts of the sprint is testing our theories. The reason for testing saves time and money on investing in the wrong ideas. In order to see if our solutions will work we need to create a plan to test them.
For example, if we believe that putting a certain feature front and center on the landing page will cause people to use it, then our goal is to see if they will naturally engage with it.
We don’t just want ideas and a pretty prototype; we want to know if we’re solving problems. To do this, we refer back to our “Can we” questions (refer to the day 1 article) and what we’re trying to validate. We’ll then create a flow that proves or disproves that, so we’re focusing on our defined problems. We’re not trying to ask if the design is good or if it functions; we’re trying to flush out the idea itself because that’s the starting point of the design. We decide what we want to test and then see how it flows. It gives us a clear starting point and a clear endpoint.
Once we know what we’re testing and the flow, we can lay out the storyboard.
The user test flow informs the storyboard. The storyboard is how we test whether this flow is a good idea. Now we’ve decided on the concept and have to storyboard it in roughly six screens, or steps, for the user.
We’ll typically draw eight cells on a whiteboard. These cells represent different “screens”. We’ll put each step in a corresponding box, and using the voted concepts; we can place the ideas into the corresponding cell.
We’ll then clarify and confirm all parts of the storyboard with the group. This process helps confirm a defined “entry point” and “endpoint” for the flow.
On day two, we reviewed our 3-step concepts, voted on the elements we liked the most, started storyboarding the flow, and created a user flow that we could test.
We will take our sketches and create a functioning prototype in the next few days.
Stay tuned for that article.
Want help breaking these steps down? Sprints are always more fun together; let us know how we can help!
[This is a high-level overview of the steps that we take. For more information on the principles and exercises that our process is based on, refer to the book “Sprint” by Jake Knapp.]
