Intro

What does it mean to turn an idea into a product description? Here’s a story on how we did it for a client.

The client

A coffee-house chain.

The idea

App to preorder a hot beverage to grab and go.

What we did

1. The coffee-chain owner came up with an idea without detailed product requirements
2. Firstly, we organized a brainstorming session to gather product ideas from everybody (sticky notes on a board)
3. Then, we created a list of possible user interactions in collaboration with the client such as onboarding, the closest coffee spot search, and checkout
4. We discovered user scenarios and broke them down into user stories
5. Based on user flows, we devised a navigation map for the app. It includes rough description of app screens as well as transitions between them
6. In the meantime, the customer picks a project name, registers necessary infrastructure such as Google Play and App Store accounts (with our help, of course!)
7. Finally, considering all the product specs, we proceeded with estimating and prepared a solid commercial offer

This is an example of navigation map

What is a design sprint exactly?

Design sprint is a methodology created by Google in 2010 and since then it has been widely adopted within the tech industry at any scale to create continuous innovation and to turn ideas into product specifications in the most effective and valuable way possible.

Here you can find a brief summary of the topic. If you have a bit more time to read, this article goes into more details. If you’re wondering about the actual value design sprints create, here you can find a “oral history” of the methodology told by Google employees who applied it extensively through the years.

How does it work?

It’s a 3 days workshop. The first day will be focused on understanding the problems to solve and to seize ideas and opportunities. The second on defining how to solve such problems and on storyboarding, while the third one will be dedicated to prototyping and testing.

Who should attend it?

On our side (Dev Artel):

• One Moderator
• One Designer
• One or two Senior Developer(s)
• One Product Manager On your side (the Client): pretty much anyone who can provide valuable input! Of course it shouldn’t be too many people and there should be enough diversity of knowledge and expertise. But fear not! We will discuss with you all the details beforehand and make sure that the right people are in the room (or in the call) during the sprint.

What do you (the client) get out of it?

To put it simply, after the design sprint your ideas will have been turned into concrete assets and you will be ready to start developing your product. The assets in questions will be of different kinds, such as wireframes, product specifications, user stories, prototypes and mockups.

I’m interested! what’s next?

Just let us know, we will take it from there. We will first organize a call (or, in some cases, more than one will be necessary) to gather all the info we need to start the preparation for the design sprint. We then agree on the dates (in principle, every participant must be available full-time during the 3 days) and send you all the information about what you need to prepare and how exactly the sprint will be structured.

Do you prefer to develop the product in-house or to move forward with another company? No hard feelings! We keep the payment and the output of the design sprint is, of course, yours. This way you will have everything you need to start building.