Design Sprint

Chapter 9. Phase 5: Test

Rubber, meet road. Are you ready? Your users (or customers) are the ones who will give you the best feedback possible. This is where you get to see their pupils dilate, their smiles widen, and voices rise in reaction to your prototype. It is also when you can be greatly disappointed. If you consider your personal journey map along your design sprint, this is the point where your emotions run high, as you have spent a lot of energy up to this point and you’re hoping that everything will work. Be prepared if things go wrong. Sometimes they don’t, yet most times they do. It’s OK—to our knowledge, no humans were ever harmed by a design sprint.

What Happens During the Test Phase?

Test Your Prototype: Up to 6 hours

Debrief and Retrospective: Up to 1 hour

Recommended Agenda

Nike says “Just do it.” We say “Just test it!” Here’s what this day often looks like:

9:00	Interview #1
10:00	Interview #2
11:00	Interview #3
12:00	Quick Lunch Have a good-natured (read: snarky) conversation about what went wrong during the first three interviews. Make tweaks to fix the simple things.
1:00	Interview #4
2:00	Interview #5 Twiddle thumbs and quietly mutter curses when user doesn’t show up. Find a remote user to speak to in their place.
3:00	Interview #6
4:00	Debrief and Discuss Next Steps End with final recap/retrospective.

Test Your Prototype

The goal of the Test phase is not just ...