Ally.js is a JavaScript library simplifying certain accessibility features, functions and behaviors. Its goal is to be A JavaScript library to help web applications with accessibility concerns. The intention is to separate these generic components from actual applications and other libraries.
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By now, everyone in the technology industry has either heard of, or worked in agile sprints. But what about design sprints? Popularised by GV, Google’s venture capital arm, design sprints are an effective way to rapidly test and prototype ideas in the space of a week. In this article, I’ll look at how design sprints fit in with existing Agile and Lean methodologies, and how you can decide if a design sprint is the best approach for your latest project.
Processes and methodologies provide a framework teams with diverse skills to work together effectively. Modern tech teams are highly sophisticated and made up of people with a diverse range of skills – product managers, visual designers, developers, and user experience designers, who all bring their individual perspectives to a team.
UX has traditionally followed a waterfall-like process where research is strictly followed by design, which is then followed by testing. Each stage is finished before another starts, and there are no strict guidelines as to how long each stage should take.
Agile UX exploded in popularity as UX designers desperately tried to fit into a methodology optimised for developers. Agile has led to quicker development times because it provides developers with a clear framework for managing work. However, when UX designers try to fit into a developer’s methodology, the best UX ideas don’t always get built, tested and validated.
Next came Lean methodology, and the concept of the minimum viable product, made famous by Eric Ries. The accepted wisdom was to launch as quickly as possible, with a heavy emphasis on building quickly, launching quickly and then iterating. Each cycle is made as short as possible, which means that testing the idea or the user experience only happens after the product is built and launched.
While these methodologies all have speed in common, design sprints work a little differently. Before we dig deeper, here is Google’s definition of a design sprint from their GV arm:
The sprint is a five-day process for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers.
There are many more explanations and guides on design sprints so I won’t go into too much detail. If you want to know more, I highly recommend Google’s free 46-page guide.
Design sprints dramatically speed up the process of solving and testing design problems.
From this diagram, you can see the key difference in methodologies in the focus, resources and speed of each approach:
| Process | The UX designer’s point of view |
| Agile sprints | UX designers try to fit into a development process. The process is optimised for quick build times. Developers learn from testing the code. Designers learn when several sprints have passed and a new release is launched. |
| Lean methodology | UX designers try to fit into a business product development process. The process is optimised for quick launch times. Product and business teams learn from market interactions e.g. number of sign ups, traffic, revenue. Designers learn from analytics and post launch testing. |
| Design sprints | The design team prototypes, tests and validates ideas before they are built or launched. The team learns from user testing feedback and then iterate in a weeks time. |
Design sprints are effective when you want innovation: when you’re solving NEW and BIG problems. It doesn’t have to be for a completely new product, it could be for a new feature you want to explore.
When you want to find innovative solutions to unique problems, both Agile and Lean methods have the potential to lead to wasted development time and resources.
In order to innovate, UX and design teams need to be given the time, resources and framework to rapidly test ideas, which is why I believe design sprints are so useful for innovation. Design sprints allow teams to iterate quickly, and help organisations decide whether to invest in a new idea.
Design sprints are the quickest way to validate ideas, because all the other distractions are eliminated. The Lean process validates many more aspects of a product, including product/market fit, market factors and of course aspects related to the build. Agile focuses on quickly building a product and iterating from there. Next time you’re looking to innovate a product or feature, see if a design sprint can help you launch a more effective product faster.
Have you used design sprints? Did they work for the design challenge you were facing?
The post Had enough of agile sprints? Time for design sprints appeared first on UX Mastery.
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It’s a sad truth that many of us wake up stressed and go to bed stressed. Our brains are constantly working overtime trying to keep up with deadlines, remembering a loved ones birthday, remembering if you locked the car door, or worrying about whether you’re ready for that big presentation you have today. The thoughts we have to process are endless and our brains suffer for it. They become cluttered to the point where we can’t think straight and can’t perform to the best of our abilities.
Mental clarity is essential to our health and success, and luckily it can be restored very easily, and very quickly. Here are 8 fantastic brain warm-up exercises that can be done in the morning to encourage mental clarity, leaving you with a mind as clear as a blue sky.
This really simple exercise gets both sides of your brain to work together and it’s quite enjoyable too. Go through the alphabet and think of a noun (the more unusual the better) for each letter. Your left brain will help you to think of the word, and your right brain will imagine what the noun looks like (colour, size, shape). This exercise gets the entire brain to focus and eliminates brain fog.
If nouns don’t interest you, try naming comic book characters or television shows!
Studies have shown that music (especially classical music) can have a significant effect on our brain function, mental state and mood (it’s called The Mozart Effect).
Calming pieces of classical music can slow down your heart rate, which decreases blood pressure and lowers the level of stress hormones in the body. A stress-free mind is a clear mind, and this can be even more effective if you play the instrument yourself.
Fun fact: surgeons have been known to perform surgery whilst listening to classical music!
Exercise is a healthy way to relieve stress, but yoga is even better because it combines exercise and meditation to de-clutter the mind. When a person is holding a yoga pose, their mind is focused on their breathing and staying still so much so that other thoughts are removed.
Kickstart your day with some epic mind-clearing yoga poses such as ‘Warrior I Pose’ or ‘Tree Pose’, which really diverts your focus to breathing and balance.
Like the noun challenge, double doodle exercises both sides of the brain by using your dominant and non-dominant hands. Simply take a pen or pencil in both hands (stick the paper down with tape if needed) and try to draw a picture. To start off easy, try drawing a heart or the outline of a house (pre-school style). Doing this basic exercise in the morning will eliminate trivial thoughts from the mind and increase productivity.
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