T21: Organising an effective Design Sprint

Tuesday, 17 July 2018, 13:30 – 17:30

 

Panayiotis Zaphiris (short bio)

Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus

Andreas Papallas (short bio)

Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus

 

Objectives:

This half-day tutorial will take you through the format of a 5-day sprint following the structure of the ‘Design Sprint’ as coined by Google Ventures. This involves a series of design and thinking tasks that progressively lead to a prototype solution of a well defined design problem.

In this tutorial, we will learn about how to organise an effective Design Sprint for research and industry through hands-on activities where each of the participants will be able to practice and reflect how this technique can help them in the product design process.
 

We will guide you through a series of design sprint activities, giving you a firsthand experience of what it’s like to apply this process to a design challenge. Along the way, you’ll hear stories of how other organizations have implemented design sprints and engage in discussions of tips and pitfalls for executing design sprints in your organization. Case studies from various fields of work will be demonstrated.

 

Content and Benefits:

The emergence of Design/Creative Thinking in exploring imaginative and unique solutions to issues that relate to technology and social innovation has gradually become prominent. A design sprint is a process for rapidly answering critical business questions through designing, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers. Typically, these start from a wider-scale and more abstract thinking exercises gradually building towards a design prototype and user testing.

Indicative content and activities:

  • Welcome and introduction
  • Design sprint overview
  • How to prepare for a design sprint
  • Uses of design sprints
  • Defining the problem
  • Storyboards
  • Sketching
  • Prototyping (demonstration of web platforms)
  • Sprint debrief and retrospective
  • What happens after a design sprint
  • Integration into teams and organizations
  • Tutorial retrospective
  • Wrap-up

Learning Outcomes:

  • Understand how to deploy the design thinking process within your organization to innovate quickly and effectively
  • Learn the five phases of a design sprint, how to facilitate your team through a design sprint, and when to use a design sprint
  • Practise the implementation of a design sprint for a real life design problem

Target Audience:

Target audience includes (but is not limited to): designers, researchers working in areas related to design for social change or sustainable design, interface architects, activists, policy and opinion makers. 

Bio Sketches of Presenters:

Prof. Panayiotis Zaphiris is a Professor at the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts of the Cyprus University of  Technology. He is also the Dean of School of Fine and Applied Arts where he also directs and teaches on the online MSc in Interaction Design. Before returning to Cyprus he was a Reader at the Centre for Human-Computer Interaction Design , School of Informatics of City University London where he still hold the title of Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow. Before City University, he was a researcher at the Institute of Gerontology at Wayne State University from where he also got his Ph.D. in Human Computer Interaction (HCI). His research interests lie in HCI with an emphasis on inclusive design and social aspects of computing. He is especially interested in HCI issues related to the elderly and people with disabilities. He is also interested in internet related research (web usability, mathematical modelling of browsing behaviour in hierarchical online information systems, online communities, e-learning, web based digital libraries and finally social network analysis of online human-to-human interactions).

Andreas Papallas holds a BA in Architecture from the University of Sheffield and an MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design from the University of Cambridge with distinction. His thesis project 'Urban Rapprochement Tactics: Stitching Divided Nicosia' set out to explore the role of space in ameliorating inter-ethnic tensions and propose ways to encourage meaningful interaction. He has presented research and design work at conferences and exhibitions in San Francisco, London, Cambridge, Madrid and Nicosia. Most recently, he has co-directed a series of workshops about co-creative design and social change at the HCI International Conference in Vancouver, Canada. As such, his interest lies in developing creative design methods for social innovation and impact. Andreas has recently completed posts as Visiting Fellow at the University of Cyprus and Researcher at the Centre for Urban Conflicts Research at the University of Cambridge while he is a frequent design guest critic at the University of Cyprus and the University of Nicosia. He is the recepient of the 2017 Urban Communication Research Grant by the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). In 2017, Andreas was appointed as a Summer School Unit Tutor at the 'Meeting of Design Students' in Gent, Belgium.