report

an interesting conference

design sprintDesign Sprints is a methodology developed by Google for iterative design research: quote‘The Design Sprint is a proven methodology for solving problems through designing, prototyping, and testing ideas with users. Design sprints quickly align teams under a shared vision with clearly defined goals and deliverables. Ultimately, it is a tool for developing a hypothesis, prototyping an idea, and testing it rapidly with as little investment as possible in as real an environment as possible.’ Typically, this process of design, prototype, test, and redesign takes place within one intense sprint of five days. However, the Hybrid Pubs group sprint is spread out over 9 days in 9 months, giving more time for in-depth discussion, playfulness, and (productive) failure.

Our approach to prototype development for hybrid publications is work-flow first design, as described by Adam Hyde in Understanding workflowWorkflow-first Design: ‘To get to good technology, it is very important to start the process by not thinking about technology at all. If you frame your thinking through the lens of technology, you will more than likely end up with an expensive failure. What [workflow-first designers] are really interested in are good workflows and, later, designing technology to encapsulate and enable good workflow.’ For this reason, the exercises and outcomes described below do not primarily focus on pub tech. Instead, the goal of the first sprint day was to create a clear problem definition, and the goal of the second day was to get a clear understanding of a regular event report publishing workflow.