The product design sprint: a five-day recipe for startups

At Google Ventures, we do product design work with startups all the time. Since we want to move fast and they want to move fast, we’ve optimized a process that gets us predictably good results in five days or less. We call it a product design sprint, and it’s great for getting unstuck or accelerating projects that are already in motion. I’ve planned and run over 100 of these sprints, first with teams at Google and now with startups in the Google Ventures portfolio. Over the next several posts, I’ll be sharing a DIY guide for running your own design sprint. Before the sprint: Prepare Get the people and things you need. Day 1: Understand Dig into the design problem through research, competitive review, and strategy exercises. Day 2: Diverge Rapidly develop as many solutions as possible. Day 3: Decide Choose the best ideas and hammer out a user story. Day 4: Prototype Build something quick and dirty that can be shown to users. If you think you’ve heard of this model before, well, you’re right.

The product design sprint: prototype (day 4) At the Google Ventures Design Studio, we have a five-day process for taking a product or feature from design through prototyping and testing. We call it a product design sprint. This is the sixth in a series of seven posts on running your own design sprint. On day 2 you drew concept sketches. This part of the sprint is super exciting for me as a designer. But wait a second… what should this prototype look like? What your prototype should look like Quite simply, a prototype is anything a person can look at and respond to. Make it minimally real You’ll probably be amazed at how much real feedback a user can give you on a slide deck of mockups that aren’t even pixel-perfect. They can tell you what they understand about your product — and what they don’t. You’ll also learn things that metrics alone can’t tell you, in particular why users do the things they do, rather than just what they do. Why? Keynote versus code Occasionally you’ll need to write some code for your prototype.

Sketchboards: Discover Better + Faster UX Solutions The sketchboard is a low-fi technique that makes it possible for designers to explore and evaluate a range of interaction concepts while involving both business and technology partners. Unlike the process that results from wireframe-based design, the sketchboard quickly performs iterations on many possible solutions and then singles out the best user experience to document and build upon. It’s what we do well Designers love the “breakthrough moments” in a working relationship. The ability to convey a solution pictorially Showing a solution is more vivid and far less abstract than talking or writing about it; pictures are both louder and more clear than words.The ability to presuppose new solutions Despite incomplete information about the problem, designers make instinctual leaps to offer potential solutions that would not have been arrived at through deductive logic alone. The trouble is that these moments are all too rare on normal design and development projects.

Prototyping in Systems Analysis Prototyping in Systems Analysis Introduction Organizations of all types do it. Microsoft, Disney, and Boeing do it. This paper will look at what prototyping is to systems analysis. Table of Contents What is Prototyping? As mentioned earlier a prototype is like a model or a simulation of a real thing. A survey of MIS managers in Fortune 1000 firms [3] suggests that there are four prototyping methodologies in use today which supplement the traditional systems development life cycle: Illustrative: produces only mockups of reports and screens. Others suggest such categorizations as evolutionary versus throw-away [10]. Another way that prototypes are classified is by the fidelity of the prototype, or the degree to which the prototype represents the appearance and interaction of the system.[4] A low-fidelity prototype is one that is quickly constructed to depict concepts, design alternatives, and screen layouts. Included in the chart above are terms used to describe other prototyping concepts.