In this case study, we will explore how I facilitated a design sprint while working as an consultant for AliveCor, a medical technology company based in San Francisco. AliveCor need a companion app to go along with it’s flagship device, the KardiaMobile 6L. I was asked as a consultant to facilitate the design sprint.
Design sprints are a structured process for solving problems through design thinking, created by Jake Knapp at Google Ventures. It is used by companies around the world to solve complex problems and create innovative solutions in a short period of time.
Facilitating the Design Sprint
As an expert consultant for AliveCor, I was tasked with facilitating a design sprint to address a key challenge faced by the company. The challenge was to develop a new product that would help users better manage their heart health and prevent potential cardiac issues.
The design sprint process involved five key phases, including understanding, sketching, deciding, prototyping, and testing. Each phase had a specific goal and set of activities to be completed within a set time frame.
User Testing
In any version of a design sprint, the final day is reserved for user testing. When I perform user testing with a group, I prefer to print out the pages being tested and tape them to a wall in the observation room. This allows the team to place red (negative), yellow (neutral) and green (negative) post it’s to the place on or near the areas being described by the user.
This method provides a quick way to view the results as a heatmap over the user journey. As you see below there was a lot of green, which provided the whole team with a sign of relief and our efforts were validated.
Results
AliveCor was a happy camper. The work done during the design sprint was their first app to go to market. It provided a solid foundation for suite of products to come.