Implementing a design thinking process.
‘Sprint’ as a starting point for discovery.
How might we, begin to bring research into the delivery cycle?
The problem:
Our products and design decisions were not being driven from an understanding of our users, or their motivations. We lacked a real discovery process and too often would jump to building features without proper validation.
There were negative effects to this. First, a growing disinterest from the team as they had no connection to the problems that the company was trying to solve. Second, features that missed the mark entirely and provided little to no value in the real world. Lastly, months of development effort lost on sub par experiences.
The solution:
More research validation, and a stronger focus on discovery before solutioning. Admitedlly I was very inspired after reading Jake Knapp’s Design Sprint handbook. The method and philosophy made sense, get the right people in the room, and solve a problem quickly before investing too much resources on the actual build.
The first step to changing the delivery process would be to bring new methods to the table. Enter the design sprint.
“Power a car buying experience for both dealers and buyers that can take place anywhere.”
Long term goal
“What is the benefit to dealers?”
”Do we understand the behaviours and interactions between buyers & dealers?”
Sprint Questions
That statement and those challenges are still pinned as the product design team’s north star at Motoinsight. Even after the sprint week had concluded, this shared mission is what our team strives for.
Sprint week allowed us to dig into the car buying journey and all of the actors involved. Getting that high level view gave our team the understanding they would need to solve some critical problems for the business.
Draw the map, when does the journey end, where does it begin, who is involved and where do the touchpoints meet.
The mapping excercise uncovered a lot of unknowns for the design team. After interviewing several hand picked experts, we discoverd that the car buying process within a typical dealership had more than just 2 personas. What actualy exists is a team of sales proffessionals and department managers who were a part of a successful sale.
After writing down various "How Might We" notes and questions, the team voted and agreed that the interaction we wanted to focus on was the in-store experience.
Day 2
Tuesday produced countless sketches and ideas but came down to 2 concepts that the team decided to pursue. One focused on helping smooth out the communication between buyers and dealers, and the other tried to help facilitate a smoother in store experience. We would go on to execute both ideas into a single prototype for testing.
Day 3
Once the team’s concepts were clear, Wednsday was spent storyboarding the desired experience. How would our scenario play out? And how should we build the prototype to properly support it. Day 3 was spent planning the next day’s execution. What supplies would we need, who was doing what, and what were the logistics needed to execute our concepts.
Day 4
The solution that we would end up prototyping had two parts. The first revolved around the existing desktop portal, with better in app notifications and a timeline view summarizing all of the activity of specific leads.
The second part focused specifically on mobile and would allow customers to check-in to the dealerships from their device bridging the at home and in store shopping experiences.
Dealers often times juggle multiple people and remembering names and personal details can be difficult. Without that personal connection, the customers quickly lose what little trust they had when they interact with the sales person. To help this, the dealer’s mobile experience would send a text notification when a customer checked in, allowing them to quickly pull up a users profile to prep for the conversation.
Day 5 - Testing and feedback
As a team we watched the tests in real time and collectively captured notes. Once the testing sessions were complete, we compared notes to see where our prototype fell flat, where our areas of success were, and what future improvement ideas came from the testing interviews.
We would take these insights with us, as we looked to design solutions for real implementation.
Results
Beyond the prototypes that were produced from sprint week, the process had longer lasting effects on the team.
We have a better understanding on how to implement sprint excercises into our delivery process to help drive discovery. We now know when it’s appropriate to use these workshops and how often we should do them.
Most importantly we have a stronger grasp of the car buying process and we understand all of the humans that are a part of that complicated journey.