droidconIN 2016

A Design Sprint is a five-day process for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers. In this workshop, we’ll be minimizing the business’s problem statement to focus on one key issue rather than several to tackle the problem with multiple solutions within 6 hours instead of 5 days.

This 6 hour sprint will be based on an Android app.

The Abstract idea could be to have a dummy app for which participants can choose to a business’s Founder/ CEO/ Product Manager/ Customer, etc.

OR

A business based on an Android app could bring in their team to solve a problem which is actually present in the app. The other participants could be customers or could fit in other roles or simply experience the sprint alongside. Due to the 6 hour mark, the problem statement will be such that the business’s entire model isn’t made public.

Sprint Phases:

The sprint will consist of the following phases:

1. Understanding - Understanding the problem
2. Diverging - Brainstorming solutions for the problem
3. Converging - Bringing together ideas from Phase 1 and 2 and selecting the relevant ones.
4. Prototyping - Prototyping a test product through Wireframes/ Pixate/ Paper, etc upon the ideas shortlisted in Phase 3
5. Testing and Learning - Testing the prototype with a few customers and learning what worked and what didn’t.

Intended Audience:

####Maximum: 100 Individuals (20 teams of 5 Individuals)

Each team must contain one of these:

1. Android Developers who want to take an active part into a creative decision that a company is going to make and is looking for alternate solutions in the least time possible. This will consist of exploring the overhead, complexity and memory constraints of the target devices the company needs to target. You will be expected to also create a basic prototype in the 5th hour of the workshop. Your contribution in the hours before the 5th hour will ensure that the prototype you have to create can be fulfilled in an hour’s time.

2. UI/UX Designers who are experienced in Mobile UX and can easily brainstorm alternate solutions and make quick prototypes which they can brief upon as to how they will psychologically delight the user and approve/reject ideas from team members which won’t. Your responsibility will be focusing throughout the six hours at what your team is making and ensure they stay on track with the goals decided in the 1st and 2nd hour of the session.

3. Product Managers/Designers who will be the bridge to connecting the entire team together while still helping out in design decisions, branding, strategy and keeping the team together & efficiently functioning in the 6 hour sprint. You will also be responsible for talking to business/dummy business and their customers, and integrating their say into your goals for the team. Your role will be most important for the 1st and 5th phase where you will coordinate with the company insiders and their customers but also to keep the team together and manage resources efficiently.

(UI/UX Designers can act as Product Designers or Vice Versa)
If you cannot form a team with the following, we’ll do it for you 15 minutes before the workshop, provided there are enough participants for each of the roles or else roleplaying will occur.

Volunteers Needed:

#####A Business:

1. A Company/Business/Startup that is looking for a small design solution for a possible existing problem or trying out something new on an Android Mobile/ Wear app and wants to know alternate solutions for the same through a design sprint. This will include the important people from the business who will be affected from the design solution for that app (atleast 3-4 insiders). Take a Thursday/Friday off and come down to DroidconIN.

#####Facilitators/Individuals:
2. 3-4 facilitators/individuals who might want to help me out going through each time while they are sprinting through the different phases and want to ensure they are on track and time. (Masterchef type of vibe, y’know). You will be required throughout the sprint to ensure quality against time.

#####Users/Customers:
3. 3-4 users/customers (if it’s a startup/business that will be volunteering) who will be able to describe their experiences to the team before they get started. They will also be needed at the end of the sprint to test the prototypes against. If we’re going ahead with a dummy company, facilitators will roleplay as customers.

Outline

#####Intro:
The first half hour will be to guide participants through the phases and do’s and don’ts of the Sprint.

#####Phase 1:
The Android app will be and a specific problem statement will be given for the Android app in discussion. This could be a redesign, a new feature, new flavor (free/paid) or User Review Study that the team will need to understand to triangulate the problem and jot down important points for the solution.

#####Phase 2:
The team will take the points jotted down in Phase 1 and scribble down all the ideas they can think of for that problem on Post-It notes. These ideas can be good/bad/vague. The important aspect is brainstorming since all these ideas will be evaluated in the next phase. The goal will be to come up with as many ideas as possible for solving the problem.

#####Phase 3:
Product Designers/ Managers along with Facilitators will help to converge the ideas and sort them out into which should be implemented and which should be scrapped. This will be decided as per a vote from all team members and facilitators/insiders using sketch pens and Post It Notes suggesting changes, etc. These ideas can then be tweaked within the same hour for a complete blueprint of what you’ll be working on. (This phase might be completed in less than an hour giving more time for the prototype.)

#####Phase 4:
The entire team will work towards making a prototype. This could be a Pixate Interactive Mockup, a High Fidelity prototype on Photoshop, a Paper Prototype using Chart papers or an Android application using Android Studio. The choice is yours. All these prototypes will however need to be detailed for the specific problem.

#####Phase 5:
Insiders along with Users will visit each team and evaluate their prototype based on the problem originally described. They will be rated according to the Business and UX goals in mind by both the company and the users out of a 10. The entire team will have to break down the thought process for that prototype to the insiders and users before they can vote on the prototype.

P.S. Due to the limited amount of time necessary for Phase 3 and 5, Phase 4 might receive more than 1 hour for implementing the prototype.

Requirements

1. LOTS of Post-It Notes!
2. Sketch Pens!
3. A blank book to scribble on, jot down your ideas.
4. Laptop/ Macbook (Your OS, your choice!)
5. Android Studio (duh!)
6. Any prototyping/wireframing tool (Balsamiq/ Photoshop/ Pixate/ Sketch)

Speaker bio

Swapnil Borkar is a User Experience Designer and Android Developer, who likes to challenge popular patterns in Experience Design and improvise them with better, scalable solutions.

Swapnil conducted two workshops last year at DroidconIN 2015:

1. Iconography with Material Design on Paper
2. Virtual Reality Design Principles with Google Cardboard

He has been active on StackOverflow/ StackExchange UX from September, 2015, and has a Reputation of 5,579 as on August, 2016. Top 0.57% this year.

Swapnil has been a core member of Google Developer Group - Mumbai and has been writing UX Reviews since February 2015, and has reviewed 9 applications since which include: Transitpedia, DocsApp, Binge and MatchUp Cricket, etc.

He is an Active Speaker who likes to engage the audience through interactive workshops and has conducted sessions on:
Fingerprints and Authentication on Android Marshmallow, Micro-Interactions, Android Navigation Anti-Patterns, Iconography with Material Design, Product Design, Color Psychology and Virtual Reality Design principles.

He was invited to Thakur College of Science and Engineering (TCSE) to conduct a 14 hour session spread across two days to teach Android Development in 2015, courtesy of GDG, Mumbai.

Currently in the third year of his Master’s in Computer Applications from Deccan Education Society’s NMITD, Mumbai, Swapnil also happens to ace in his academics at times and participate and contribute actively in communities and events happening around Mumbai with the focus on Android and Design.

Design Sprints Experience:

Facilitated: Google’s Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) App Contest in Mumbai
Mentored & Facilitated: ECell’s HackEThon Design Sprint at IIT Bombay.

Links

• Iconography with Material Design, Droidcon 2015: https://droidconin.talkfunnel.com/2015/38-iconography-with-material-design-on-paper
• Virtual Reality Design Principles, Droidcon, 2015: https://droidconin.talkfunnel.com/2015/39-virtual-reality-design-principles-with-google-card
• GV (Formerly Google Ventures) Design Sprint Page: http://www.gv.com/sprint/
• Optional course to prepare participants for the Design Sprint: https://www.udacity.com/course/product-design--ud509
• LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/in/swapnilborkar
• StackExchange URL: http://ux.stackexchange.com/users/68872/swapnil-borkar