Product Design

Prerequisite Knowledge

No Experience Required. See detailed requirements.

• Intro to Design Sprint

  Describe the purpose and process of a Design Sprint and identify good candidates for a Design Sprint. Learn how to involve necessary stakeholders in a Design Sprint and differentiate between the responsibilities of the Product Manager and Designer roles.

• Understand

  Describe the Understand phase of the Design Sprint and how lightning talks, interviews, and competitive analysis can be used as an input during the Understand phase. Use the “How Might We” method to identify opportunities and utilize the “Rose Bud Thorn” method to classify things as positive, negative, or opportunities. Apply Affinity Mapping to identify thematic insights.

• Define

  Describe the Define phase of the Design Sprint and define success metrics using the HEART framework. Explain the difference between goals, signals, and metrics; Craft Design Principles and write a Future Press Release.

• Sketch

  Describe the Sketch phase of the Design Sprint and use the Crazy 8’s method to brainstorm ideas through sketching. Facilitate a process for sharing and voting on sketches within the team and create a more detailed, in-depth Solution Sketch that contains at least 3 frames.

• Decide

  Describe the Decide phase of the Design Sprint and create a Decision Matrix to narrow down ideas to those worth pursuing. Represent perspectives from a wider audience using Thinking Hats.

• Prototype

  Describe the Prototype phase of the Design Sprint and create a storyboard to map out a plan for your prototype. Learn how to utilize different types of prototyping and create a high fidelity, interactive prototype and apply best practices for creating prototypes.

• Validate

  Describe the Validate phase of the Design Sprint. Create plans and data collection processes for a user study; Run a user study, interview users, and conduct a feasibility discussion with an engineer.

• Next Steps

  Describe benefits of iteration and identify when iteration is appropriate. Evangelize your idea across cross-functional development teams and create documentation for the engineering team.

• Course Project: Run a Design Sprint

  In this project, you will take a problem/opportunity through a Design Sprint. During the Design Sprint, you will explore multiple ideas, narrow down ideas to the most compelling one, create a storyboard and prototype, conduct user research, refine their ideas, and incorporate findings into a final product spec.