Wastley
I was fortunate enough to find a group of students who wanted to do a full 7-hour, 5-day Sprint. I became Sprint facilitator, organized a slew of design prompts, activities, and slide shows. Our first two days were jam-packed with activities including expert interviews, Journey mapping, and crazy eights to name a few. Day 3 was solely dedicated to prototyping and recruiting. Day 4 was to conduct user testing.
Here is a brief overview of our sprint journey:
Day 1: Define the Challenge & Creating Solutions
Day 2: Deciding on Solutions & Storyboarding
Day 3: Prototyping
Day 4: User Testing
Day 5: Optional* Recap Day, Extra-Time, Additional User Testing, Insights, and User Feedback Edits
Meet The Team
Christina Maury
Facilitator & Organizer
Linh Le
Lead Designer & The Decider
Bob Ruediger
Lead Interviewer
Christina Maresca
Lead Recruiter
Janice Jons
Designer & Researcher
Kathrina Tacastacas
Designer & Researcher
The
Problem
Once I assembled my team, we voted on several topics, ultimately choosing food waste reduction. With the aim to create a new product that's never been seen before.
Wastely is an app that alows users to reduce their food waste footprint. Thus making it easy for users to find a collection of resources, recipes, new skills, and organizations, all while rewarding the user.
After thorough research, I decided to follow AJ&Smarts' 4-day design sprint process. Jake Knapp, a consultant for AJ&Smart agency perfected, through much trial and error, the original 5-day design sprint into 4 days, with a 5th optional day.
The
Sprint
The
Solution
Defining the Challenge & Creating Solutions
How Might We...?
Frame your interview notes into questions.
We used the “How might we…?” method, to determine our long term goals. Each member wrote insights from the interview and then mapped out to create the following categories:
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Creative Cooking & Recipes
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Social Status
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Sharing Information & Ideas
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Shifting Perspectives & Attitudes Towards Food Waste
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Global Accessibility
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Reduce Waste
Dot voting was then used to narrow down our questions for our Long Term Goals.
"Tip: Remember that your “How Might We” question should not be so broad or narrow. A well-framed “HMW” question will contain the right amount of inspiration for you to quickly start brainstorming potential solutions." -Google Slide #13
Expert Interview
I was able to line up our expert interview with Alma Nejenhuis.
Alma started her waste reduction journey with her mom growing up and has since founded her own co-op, as well as serves on the board of another, all while studying for her Masters in Food Waste and Environmental Studies in the Netherlands. We were excited to have an expert with a wealth of knowledge with the ability to explain complex problems in layman's terms.
During the interview, we learned most food waste begins at the home and unfortunately, there are a wide range of obstacles that make it difficult to overcome. One particular difficulty Alma stated was, there aren't enough convenient ways for people to access reliable information about what they can do with their extra food. We also need to educate more, to make the most out of our purchases.
Can we...? Brainstorming
Ask: How could we fail? Turn these fears into questions we can answer.
We used the “Can we…?” method, to determine our sprint questions. Each member wrote pessimistic, easily answerable Yes/No questions that they belive would will prevent our most optimistic long term goals.
Again, dot voting was then used to narrow down our Sprint Questions.
Sprint Questions
1. Can we create a product that encourages people from all backgrounds to share creative food waste reduction ideas?
2. Can we reward users for sharing their ideas and information?
3. Can we ensure that the information is always safe and reliable?
Long Term Goals
1. Provide a platform where users can share and retrieve helpful ideas regardless of their background and socio-economic status.
2. Make reliable information about food waste reduction and a community of helpful users accessible and easy to find.
Story Mapping
To pinpoint the area where we could make the biggest impact, we used story mapping to determine the high-level steps required to achieve our goal. This was the first time in the sprint where our team was not on the same page which resulted in conflicting ideas about what exactly we should be mapping. Because time was limited, we decided to map the entire process of cooking at home from the planning stages to what happens after a meal.
By using map targeting and looking at where our sprint questions fit into the story map, we found an interesting correlation between our questions and the planning phase of grocery shopping. At this point, it was decided that we would create a product to help users reduce their food waste at home by making smarter decisions about the food they already have and what they plan to buy.
Lightning Demo
Once we narrowed down the problem space, each member was assigned with task of preparing a Google Slides presentation for a lightning demo of competitor and analogous products that have already explored this problem space. I focused my presentation on apps that helped users find recipes and create shopping lists based on the food they already have in their fridge or pantry. My suggestion was to create a product with a similar purpose but with suggestions that prioritized reducing food waste as much as possible.
Several UI elements presented during the lightning demo, including the color scheme, were eventually included in the final prototype that was used for testing on day four.
Crazy Eights
As we approached the end of day one, it was time to develop these rough concepts into solutions. To start the process, we used a technique called “crazy eights”, where you have eight minutes total to draw eight sketches of user interaction, essentially, 60 seconds for each panel.
The Final Concept
The final activity for the day prompted each of my colleagues to create a stand-alone, three-panel storyboard based on all the previous exercises.
"Storyboarding:
• Choose an idea that you had previously from the past exercise to put more thought and detail into.
• Each sticky note is one frame in the storyboard. The sticky note should be used to draw the action that is happening. Use the room on the page to the side of the Post-it to give a brief explanation. Make sure that each frame is understandable without further verbal explanation.
• Fill in each frame in the storyboard.
• Give the storyboard a title that encapsulates what is happening.
Rules: Make it stand alone, keep it anonymous, give it a name" -Google Slide #30
Once completed, each board was anonymously posted to a FigJam file to be presented on day two.
Click the Heart Icon to vote on your favorite concept!
Deciding on Solutions & Storyboarding
Phase 2: Diverge
Phase 2 is all about using individual work and input to align towards a common goal. We will complete our understanding of the process and then go through various exercises designed to arrive at designs that align toward a common goal.
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Have a mindset of "Yes and"
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Constantly ask “How might we?”
-Google Slide #32
Art Museum
We opened up Day 2, with the unveiling-- each person took their first look at each others storyboards. -Google Slide #33
Heat Maps
From here, we created our first heat maps, which allowed everyone to unlimtedly vote for the best ideas and features per project. This was also the time to ask questions (posted on sticky notes).
Presentations
Afterwards I, as the facilitator, conducted several speed critiques, where I summarized each storyboard, with focus on the heat maps and tried to answer anyone questions related to each concept.
* Note: When storyboarding for this process the design needs to be able to “speak for itself.” If the design wasn't clear to me, how will users get it?
I then opened the room up for discussion.
The Super Vote
To make a final decision, the straw poll method was used. Each member was allowed a single vote and could explain their rationale by writing a concise reason on a sticky note to accompany the vote. After the votes were revealed, our decider was given time to examine everything one final time before casting the deciding “super vote.”
Linh used her vote on a storyboard titled “The Google of Food Waste Reduction” which was designed by Christina Maresca. The storyboard features an app with a simple home screen that allows users the option to give or receive extra food, to chat with other community members, and to learn ways to reduce their food waste. Each of these features were also wireframed on the two remaining slides.
User Test Flow
One issue that was immediately apparent was that our chosen concept was a good collection of features, but it didn’t give us a complete flow for our user tests. When making her decision, Linh suggested incorporating some of the more promising features from other storyboards (including my concept for tailoring recipes to a user’s inventory). This gave us plenty of ideas to work with when designing our user test flow.
The first phase of creating a finalized user test flow was for each member to individually write six action steps. As was done with previous activities, the ideas were presented to the group for voting and in the end the action steps which I wrote were chosen to use as the foundation for our user test flow.
Storyboard
Armed with our long term goals, sprint questions, final concept, and action steps, the rest of day two was dedicated to drawing the storyboard for our prototype. Our initial flow consisted of eight screens starting with an entry point of signing up for the app and the success criteria of users finding a reliable resource on the app for using the food they already have. With the storyboard completed, day two came to a close with a solid idea chosen and the plans for a prototype completed.
Prototyping
Day 3:
Prototyping & Recruiting
Day three was devoted almost entirely to creating the prototype in Figma. However, Christina Maresca, our lead recurter, preped our participants, as well as assisted in writing a finalized test script.
Throught the day, we ran several trial runs to ensure that the prototype was in working order, and that the tasks and script aligned with our long term goals and sprint questions.
Interview Script
Our script was very basic, as this was most of the teams first time interviewing users. It included:
• Personal demographics-- to provide a wide array of views.
• General background questions-- to ensure we were speaking with our target market.
• Task Questions-- which allined with our sprint goals.
You can read the full script below
User Testing
Participants
The participants for user testing were recruited on day three from various social media outlets. We specifically targeted participants who were responsible for the grocery shopping and meal planning in their household.
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Aurelia K. - Visual Designer, New Jersey, USA, 35+
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Tugce G. - Research Consultant, London, UK, 31-35
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Kelsey L. - Student, Maryland, USA, 25-30
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Samantha L. - Student, Paris, France, 31-35
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Gabrielle N. - Purchaser, Washington, USA, 25-30
Tasks
After a brief introduction and some simple background questions, participants were presented with the following tasks during the user tests:
1. You have extra food that you want to find a use for...try to use the app to input the food you currently have in your fridge/pantry to get suggestions on what to do with it.
2. Now that you’ve added your food to the app, find a great meal idea for you to use after you come back from shopping later.
3. You want to see what other people are saying about alternative food waste reduction options such as fermentation...where would you go?
Feedback Capture Grid
During each user test, team members kept track of their insights on a voltage control spreadsheet ending with a anonymous tally of how many participants were able to complete the tasks. Here are some of the results:
• 20% were able to add items they had from their pantry into the site.
• 60% were able to save a recipe for later.
• 80% were able to find a community page with a fermentation article.
• 60% found and liked our rewards system.
• 30% found the information to be reliable.
Once the tests concluded, the insights were used to create a feedback capture grid in FigJam. The feedback capture grid is made up of four sections—Likes, Criticisms, Questions, and Ideas. After everyone added their insights, all the data was grouped by similarity in an organized matter.
Feedback & Insights
Results & Reflection
Wastely was the result of the combined efforts of an enthusiastic, diverse team of aspiring designers who were willing to embrace the Design Sprint process to combat a problem for several people every day. The experience of working with a team on a design project was exciting and rewarding in a lot of ways. There were times when we felt stuck but were able to overcome it through strong communication and positive encouragement.
During our first user test, the participant Bob was interviewing, ran into a dead end. At that moment, he was able to casually direct her to a previous page, while the rest of the team quickly fixed the issue before he was able to direct her back into the flow. I think this moment shows just how much our team came together in a short time to accomplish our goals.
We were also fortunate enough to interview someone with a disability. She shared with us she was partially blind, which gave us great insight into the original color and size of our design. I am grateful for learning more about accessibility out in the field.
In the end, we tweaked and fixed issues that arose after every interview. In retrospect, If we had more time I would wait until the end of the day to fix most issues, as we were not able to compare each interview on the same scale. I think by doing it this way we also encountered a lot of bias, which would have been limited if we didn't make changes after each interview.
Although by fixing things as they came up, we were able to take this further than a normal sprint would. Overall, the product was very well received and the benefit was clear to all of our participants. Several of the participants even want to know when we were going live with the idea.
Demo & Resources
Live Demo
Now it's your turn!
Here you can see for yourself, by clicking through the live demo.
Resources
Here is a link to my Google Drive folder with all of our Design Sprint files and templates I created.
Find my Sprint FigJam files in the Figma Community @cmmaury