Key Dates:
- Design Sprint event: Tuesday 6th February 2024
- Team Presentations (Assignment GP1): Thursday 8th February 2024
- Design Sprint individual report (Assignment R1): due Tuesday 13th February 2024, midnight on Learn
Description
In this phase, you and your team will conduct a preliminary investigation on a sub-theme related Sustainable Mobility. This is the first step in identifying a specific problem or question that your team will work on for the rest of semester. You will need to put into practice the skills and knowledge introduced in the Preparation Phase. Participating fully in the Design Sprint and being engaged with your team is the best possible preparation for the rest of the course.
The Design Sprint has two main tasks for each team:
- Gather information about your chosen sub-theme and its current state at the University of Edinburgh.
- Identify specific problems/questions within your sub-theme, and generate ideas for how to address them.
Task 1: Information-gathering
In order to propose a design-led solution to a problem, you must first identify a specific problem, and understand the context in which you are working. What is happening (or not happening) right now with respect to your sub-theme? What do people want, think, do, or say in relation to the sub-theme?
During the Design Sprint, you are a detective. Just as a detective must go to places and speak to people in order to understand “what happened” and why, you must leave the classroom and spend time in the Edinburgh community to understand what’s happening (and why) on your chosen sub-theme. While you and your team members may already have experiences around sustainable transport, it is very important not only to rely on your team’s pre-existing ideas. Try to look at familiar things with “fresh eyes”, as though you were visiting an unknown place or culture. Question things that seem given, or obvious.
Although we have identified a number of Sustainable Transport sub-themes, each of these is still pretty broad. Your team will need to think about your interest and priorities within your chosen sub-theme. You will need to plan:
- Where to go during the Design Sprint.
- Who to talk to — may be teams, individuals, organisations.
- What you want to find out (types of data to collect).
- Practicalities: any equipment needed, staying in touch on the day, storing information, etc.
At the same time as planning how to use your time, you should be ready to follow up on interesting, unexpected things you might stumble across during your investigation.
Some starting information for the Design Sprint is available here:
Task 2: Identify problems and generate ideas
Once you have some done some information-gathering from relevant locations and people, you can start to identify specific problem areas. What are smaller challenges, within the sub-theme, for which you might be able to design a proof-of-concept solution? At this stage, your team does not have to (and should not) choose only one problem and solution. You should show that you have identified several possible problems and solutions, based on the Design Sprint.
At this stage, you do not need to have worked out all the details of an idea, and do not need to worry about financial viability or building anything. Focus on generating and communicating ideas that could potentially help solve your identified problem. What would you do, and why? What impact might this idea have on sustainable mobility?
By the End of this Phase
You should have started your individual report (due early in the next phase), including a description of your personal contribution to the Design Sprint ideas and to the group presentation.
Your team should have created a presentation of the information gathered in Design Sprint, and your initial ideas, and be able to clearly explain what you have done so far and why.
Find out more about the first group presentation
Your team should have stored any collected data in accordance with approved DDS and university data management and privacy requirements.
