The Design Sprint was the high point of Term 2. Our team had a lot of fun, bouncing ideas off each other, playing with various resources, making a mess and laughing about how much we’re actually accomplishing in the limited time. I’ve never been to a hackathon or a design sprint before so it was really cool to look back and realize…yeah, we did that! We became experts in the student housing crisis, considered different plans of attack, created prototypes of our desired approaches and more.
By the end of it, we had turned cardboard box into an installation prototype. We were unstoppable.
It was a lot of multitasking. Knowing that the Design Sprint was only 4 hours and that our final grades depended on it, we were at all times thinking, creating, observing and documenting…all while socializing with each other.
Thinking and creating
As designers, creating and thinking went hand in hand. We used the materials we had at our disposal to organize our thoughts and decide on which issues were the most pressing. Having decided on the topic of housing crisis before the sprint, we had done preliminary research before the Sprint. As we reported on what we had found, we were making decisions as to what would go on the white paper: common themes, experiences and urgent / unaddressed issues. Creating was our way to think and distill information to the most important bits.
The initial collaging helped us understand the issues, define the problems, and brainstorm ideas. To tackle the invisibility of the problem, we wanted to try a creative, multimodal approach that was hard to ignore. Namely, we came up with (1) a house installation with interactive exhibits on homelessness and (2) an informative website with a housing game. We used mind mapping to flesh out the details for each approach, and then we went to work in making the prototypes:
The prototype was made from cardboard. It was touching because it was the kind of discarded material that homeless people use to make their living spaces. There was also some Chinese text on it, which reminded me that many student homeless were international students. They came to the Netherlands for a good life, but were scammed, discriminated against or otherwise edged out in the already competitive housing market.
Observing and Documenting
This sprint was the basis of our final paper – a mini ethnography on the Design Sprint. It was not only our first run at Design Thinking, but also at ethnography. With the pressure of having to create something in the next few hours, we did not have the luxury of time to write anecdotes, observe, or ask a lot of questions. Even though we were participant observers, we were very into the participation aspect.
Thankfully, Lara, my team mate, had brought a camcorder to document our process. Individually, we also took a lot of photos of the different resources, steps and our creations from that day. Afterwards, we looked through those documents to reflect on the process and remember the things that happened or that we missed while we were doing 10 other things. Those photos and videos were vital in writing the mini-ethnography / reflection for our final paper.
Socializing
Perhaps, the best part…we went through this pressure test together. We really needed each other’s support in completing the project…or a reality check if an idea was too lofty! We took advantage of everyone’s strengths, and by the end we were so proud of what we had accomplished. Flimsy though it may be, we were obsessed with our Info House. It was our trophy, after a day of researching, thinking, cutting and pasting. The course may be over, but I have yet to throw away the house!
Last Words
Overall, I loved the Design Sprint. I love the process of thinking through design because it’s very interactive and social. Although there was time pressure, it felt playful. We were playing with resources like post-its, newspapers, boxes, and trying out different things. Tinkering and thinking through these materials and creating something as a team, reminds us that design not just about the product itself, but the rich process that led to its creation.
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