Project Overview
I conducted a GV style design sprint in five days to learn more about the method and hopefully use it for future projects. It was an opportunity to test a hypothesis and get answers from users very quickly. This was a one-person sprint so I made a few modifications to accommodate that I wasn’t collaborating with a team of people. Before starting the project I was provided with a project brief, research highlights, and an interview video that I could use to gain a better understanding of the user’s perspective.
I started with a basic question — How can Museums find a way for customers to gain a better understanding and appreciation of the art they’re viewing in-person? The solution needs to be an in-person experience that someone could use while visiting a Museum. With this question in mind and the next five days planned out I was able to start my sprint.
My Role
Product Designer
Time Frame
Five Days
How can Museums find a way for customers to gain a better understanding and appreciation of the art they’re viewing in-person?
Day One
The provided research included personas and a video interview with a museum docent which was crucial in coming up with insights. I laid everything out and then organized by common topics to brainstorm different ideas. While listening to the interview a common theme kept popping up — people wanted to learn more about the art and the artist but they felt overwhelmed in a museum setting. Most museums post summaries next to art and people were relying on that to understand what they were looking at. Museum-goers usually crowd around to read the summaries or they snap a photo with their phone and keep walking. I decided to focus on a solution that would provide an engaging way for people to learn about art.
With the goal for my project decided, I was able to create a short user map. I kept the map really simple for the sake of time and to not lose focus on other ideas. The solution I came up with allowed people to learn about art beyond just reading a short summary. They could hear short audio guides as they wander around museums and have the option to read the transcript if they wanted to. A timeline of other art by the same artist would also be available and they could move through the museum while learning in a way that gave the user complete control.
Day Two
The second day was spent looking at other products that were solving similar problems. The point isn’t to blindly copy other products but to see how other apps and mobile sites are tackling the challenge and build on those existing ideas. I spent the day sketching solutions I liked so I could gather useful components and create something new. The best ideas came from products that were not related to museums in any way but were trying to solve similar problems in different environments.
I focused on audio and timeline interactions that worked well in other products. Educational learning sites had interesting ways of using timelines and I somehow wanted to incorporate that idea with the audio feature. The audio button overlay and narrator call-out on Calm was intuitive and simple. Shazam featured a scrolling option below the audio play button, a great solution for combining the audio and timeline in my own project. The user could scroll through the timeline and see art by the same artist while still having access to audio controls.
At this point, I had done the research and could move forward with sketches for my MVP. I spent eight minutes creating different variations of audio and scrolling interactions that would allow the user to achieve their goal. Quickly sketching out possible solutions created ideas that were slightly different and possibly risky, but still kept the main goal in mind.
After sketching out solutions I was able to narrow down which one made the most sense and move forward with a solution. The MVP would include a screen asking people to see their location in the museum, a second screen showing the art they were standing nearby, and lastly a screen with an audio narrative about the art and a timeline showing more art by the same artist.
Day Three
I made a 3-panel storyboard that included my solution sketch from day two. This was a way for me to see how users would interact with my product. I redrew a few of the sketches for clarity but for the most part, tried to grab existing sketches and combine them into a story. I made small changes to my original sketch, including the addition of a transcript button and title under the art image at the top of the screen.
Day Four
I had the flow down and could start creating the prototype. Keeping in mind that this had to be done in one day, I kept everything relatively simple. The only thing I decided to add last minute was a home screen, originally I had the location screen first but that might be confusing for users. This day might have been the easiest of the five since I was just copying my analog sketches into a digital format for the usability study.
Day Five
During the first four days, I had messaged a few people to test out my prototype so by the time day five came around I already had willing participants. I was testing if users could find the audio feature and if they could use and understand the scrolling timeline. Unfortunately, I couldn't create a prototype with actual audio but the play button was present so the user could see what they should be doing on that screen.
The results revealed a few things:
01.
All participants quickly found the screen where they could hear audio about the art.
02.
Most participants stated that they liked the timeline concept and enjoyed scrolling through it without being prompted to interact with it.
03.
Two participants mentioned that they wanted to see a short summary explaining the art under the play button. Rather than having to listen to the audio narrative or read the transcript it would be nice to get a quick overview before committing.
04.
Participants wanted to know how long the audio was before they started listening.
05.
Participants wanted the name of the museum they were at to be displayed somewhere since this could be used at any museum.
Conclusion
This project was a great introduction to design sprints and it showed me a different approach to solving problems. This method forced me to make decisions quickly and even if some ideas ended up being mistakes I was able to learn from the process. When you’re only investing five days it allows you to take risks and come up with ideas you might not have if you had more time. I’ll definitely be using design sprints in the future to tackle challenges in an efficient way.