Problem
A solo start-up came to me with nothing more than an idea - an AI system to help regional sales teams create the best possible plan of attack based on Artificial Intelligence. How should I distribute my sales budget? What segments look the most promising?
As it was a single-person start-up, both time and money were extremely short. Could I help him create a valid concept of his idea, and do so fairly quickly?
I decided a design sprint would be ideal in this situation, to help us both fully flesh out any design problems and to create a working prototype within a week or less.
Understand
I started with a download of all the information I could get from the CEO, kind of a mini-Lightning Talk. Over a period of a few hours, I started to understand the business idea, the users, and the problems that they face in their day-to-day lives that this tool could help solve.
Based on that information, I then created a proto-persona - eventually deciding on a mid-level data analyst with solid experience in their field.
Next, we started in with Journey Mapping, trying to understand how our user could get from problem to solution with as little friction as possible.
Define
We then defined success. Where usually I'm targeting conversions, or sales, or user satisfaction, in this case our goal was more simple - validation of the Pattern concept as a useful tool for our user type. Could they see themselves using it? Would it help them in their day-to-day?
Also useful was an existing Business Model canvas from the CEO, which helped define the Value Prop, the Revenue Stream, Customer Segments, and Key Resources.
Sketch
We then turned to Miro as a virtual whiteboard to begin sketching UI, and then I moved to Figma to start creating more formal wires. There was, as usual, a lot of back and forth before we arrived at what we felt like was a good place to finalize the UI for testing.
Prototype
With the wires updated, I created quick style tiles for the CEO to choose from, eventually landing on a clean style with a strong financial feel. Based on this, I finalized the UI design in Figma and created the prototype.
Validate
Concept validation testing was conducted informally over the course of 2 weeks by the CEO with a group of 7 users that matched our protopersona. All users agreed that the UI was a valid concept that would be a useful tool for them, and that it would be extremely helpful to their day-to-day work.
Success!
