Case study: GramCity Design Sprint
I just completed my very first design sprint. Here is a case study of what I did, please leave me your tips and comments!
Day 1: Map
The following project was based on a fictional app called GramCity which was a part of BiteSize UX’s design sprint challenge. The premise of the app is a photo editor to make pictures look amazing before posting them on social media.
My task was to create a feature on the app that could show users locations of where they could take a great photo. There was a lot of great user research that I went through which gave me insight into the different types of users and their goals when looking for a photo location. The two main categories that users fall into are:
- The Planner: this user will research locations ahead of time and plan out photos they want to get on their trip. They don’t mind traveling a bit out of the way if it means getting a great photo.
- The Impromptu: this user does not dedicate much or any time into planning their photos, but they still want to capture the cool sights in the city they’re in. They like getting cool photos of the areas they stumble across or already plan on going to but may not be sure of photo-ops beforehand or closeby.
Now that I had the background information needed, I could get started on the sprint.
I referred back to the “experts” which in this case was all of my user research. I also referred to this book that I own which is all about getting the perfect Instagram photo!
With this information, I began to identify the questions I wanted to answer at the end of the sprint. I also outlined some How Might We statements and some ways that I could fail. Specifying all of these things helped uncover a path forward and kept me focused on my actual goals.
Lesson Learned: Pre-planning may be a bit time consuming, but it’s vital to have a clear idea of what you need to do and will save you time in the end by ensuring you address your user’s needs.
I ended Day 1 by creating a user map that gave a rough idea of what I wanted to create.
Day 2: Sketch
I began Day 2 by looking at other products on the market that I could use as inspiration. I started out with Instagram, VSCO, and Pinterest. I then found a few others which weren’t directly related but had a similar flow that I wanted to use. I quickly mapped out the user flows that I wanted to focus on to help give me some ideas of what I could do.
After mapping these out, I remembered an app that I love using while traveling: Happy Cow. This is an app that helps the user find restaurants that have vegetarian/vegan options. Although at first it seems like a completely irrelevant app, it helped me a lot with creating certain parts of my product.
Lesson learned: Look outside of your industry to find inspiration.
Before I made sketches of my product, I wanted to go back to my notes I made the previous day. I decided to create an affinity map by putting every piece of information from my user research onto a sticky note. I also included my “Can we” questions and my HMW statements. After gathering all my notes, I separated the sticky notes into four main categories: Information Architecture, planning the photo, taking the photo, and sharing personal photos for others.
Now that I had all of my information clearly organized, I referred back to my user map that I created on Day 1 and identified the most critical step/screen of my product. This is what I would use for the crazy 8's exercise. I determined that the “Explore” screen would be the most important, as this screen is where the users would browse through photos to find cool locations (I originally labeled these “Search” which was incorrect so ignore that!).
Lesson Learned: I ended up drawing out a different screen on the top right (this is the filter screen not the explore screen). Make sure that you only draw out different versions of the same screen!
I decided to go with a mix of the second and third screen from the left on the top row. I chose these because I really wanted the photo collage to take up the most space as this was the most important component of the screen, but I also wanted a map on the top to indicate to users that the photos were related to the location. I did not want to allow the user to pre-filter, because this could close the user off to cool locations they might not have thought to go to.
Finally on Day 2, I created a three-panel storyboard of my product. This was meant to just include a two other screens that were related to my critical screen.
I decided to include the “Filter” page and the “Image Details” as these are also very important screens in my user flow.
Day 3: Decide
Because I was working on this design sprint by myself, there wasn’t too much deciding that I had to do. I already had my critical screen and a few others in my user flow laid out from the previous day. I went right into creating my larger storyboard. Before I drew it all out, I planned out all of the steps in my notebook to have a clear vision!
This is supposed to illustrate your user’s journey from before they log onto your product to after they log off. Please excuse my stick person as I am not the best drawer. :)
Lesson Learned: Your storyboard steps may change as you draw them out. You’re working out the finer details here so re-draw it if you need to!
Day 4: Prototype
Because Day 3 was shorter for me than it would be in a traditional group sprint, I ended up doing Day 4 on the same day. Now it was time for me to take my storyboard and turn it into a prototype that I could show users for Day 5. I made my screens in Sketch and then transferred them into Invision Studio to make a rapid prototype.
Lesson Learned: Time box your wireframes! These aren’t supposed to be pixel-perfect but rather a believable façade of what your final product would look like.
Day 5: Test
Before I knew it, it was the last day of my sprint! Now it was time to show potential users my prototype and see if it worked as intended. I selected five participants, all of whom fit into my potential user- early to mid 20s who’s favorite apps are social media. I referred back to my “Can we” questions that I made on Day 1 to see if I could answer them.
- Can we organize locations in an intuitive way so users find the perfect spot?
- Can we engage users in sharing their photo spots?
- Can we inform users how location can impact their photos?
I created my test script and make four tasks that the user would have to complete.
- Scenario 1: You are trying to find some inspiration photos for your next trip that feature architecture, how would you do this?
- Scenario 2: You have a trip coming up to New York City, you want to find inspiration photos that other people have taken in the city. Show me how you would do this.
- Scenario 3: You want to save a few photos so that you can access them when you go on your trip, how would you do this?
- Scenario 4: You’re in New York! You’re going to have a fun day of exploring, and you want to go to some of the locations of the photos you saved. What would you do?
Findings:
- All users said that the overall navigation of the product was intuitive.
- All participants also understood the purpose of the app just by looking at the Explore page. The photo feed informed them that it was some sort of photography product and the map in the background informed them that it was to be used to find cool locations for photos.
- All participants were able to complete the tasks given, although some users had trouble with the filter option.
- Three users had difficulty identifying the “Filter” icon. I would change the filter process to be more intuitive- probably by putting the filter categories as tabs above the photos.
- Two users were confused about the “Color” option. The other three used the term “aesthetic” to describe this as it would be used to find locations that are in line with the user’s Instagram aesthetic/theme. I could potentially incorporate this term and test more to see if this lessens confusion.
- Three users said that it is important for them to be able to find locations that don’t have a lot of people. In future iterations I would like to incorporate another filter option that shows how busy a certain area is.
- Two users also explained how they would like to upload their own photos for others to save. This would be a part of the MVP as well.
At this point, I re-iterated my prototype to incorporate the necessary changes. I think the sprint was a success. I was shocked at how much I got done in such a short amount of time. Each step of the sprint had a purpose and I could clearly see how each one connected to the next. I think this was a great experience and I’m looking forward to my next sprint!
