Phase 2: Develop a design sprint

What's a Design Sprint?

Developed by GV (Google Ventures, a subsidiary of Alphabet), a design sprint is a specific format to develop solutions to a design problem. You can read their explanation of the process or watch this 90 second video explainer. The GV Design Sprint is supposed to be an accelerated design process that packs brainstorming, prototyping, and user testing into five days. We won't follow their methods exactly, but the links above may help guide you as you design a process that works for your group and schedule.

For Phase 2 of this project, each group will develop a preliminary design sprint schedule document and project blog.

Note: The final deliverables for this project can still be undefined at this point! For example, your group might explore "new forms of online messaging" and discover the exact concept along the way, deciding how to ultimately show the idea in action as it comes into focus.

The sprint document should include:

Cover/title page

• Title: Design Sprint Schedule
• Date
• Course name
• Instructor(s)
• Team member names

• Abstract: One sentence summarizing your group's topic or goal — what you hope to discover at the end of your sprint.

  Schedule:

  Consult the design process and methods page to choose design and research methods that fit your team's needs and interests. Place the chosen methods onto a schedule that plots a course to the final project due date. Name the method and describe what occurs in each session (what you're doing) with the anticipated outcomes (why you're doing it).

• Date: A date or date range for which your group will conduct each phase of the project.

• Objective: Schedule some time for each item in the following list. These are the essential steps of design thinking, and go by various names depending on the design framework you're looking at. The important part is to articulate what you're trying to accomplish at each step of the project, or why you're doing each specific thing. You may repeat categories and objectives as often as needed, and they do not all need to be collaborative or group-based:

  • Research/discovery
  • Ideation/concept development
  • Production/testing/iteration
  • Analysis/feedback
• Description: Briefly describe how you are accomplishing the objective and what you will actually be doing that week. Assign roles or jobs to specific team members.

• Deliverables: List any specific assets or media to be produced.

  You include other columns or items in your timeline as desired, such as specific tools you plan to use or specific group members who will complete a task. This can be a table or a hierarchical text document.

  Example Schedule:

Project Blog

The project blog should be hosted using Sites at Penn State (which uses Wordpress). Your team should use this blog to track the progress of the project and to show interesting project outcomes.

• You can add multiple users to a blog so everyone can edit and create posts.
• If any project team members are concerned about privacy, project members may use a pseudonym (pen name) and in addition, the blog is able to be password protected to Penn State WebAccess users. Please contact your instructor if this is a concern and need help with blog configuration.

Your first post can introduce the team members or project topic. You may have some preliminary ideas to share, but it's okay if your project idea is still undefined — it won't be until the Pitch in Phase 3!

Submission details:

1. Publish a link to the project blog on the classwide Canvas discussion.
2. Upload a PDF file to the Phase 2 Canvas assignment that includes:
   • Link to the blog
   • Design Sprint Schedule