Exploring the "Freedom to be Me" through Design Sprints with Neurodivergent Scholars

The design sprint is the process of designing, prototyping, and testing an idea in five days to get feedback from users to reduce the risks of ideas being incompatible with the target, thus saving resources. The short and systematic nature is one of design sprints’ advantages. One of the problems design sprint participants face is the lack of documentation caused by the media used during design sprints. The solution to that is to use digital media in design sprints. Digital media that can be used in design sprints are canvas applications. However, existing applications have drawbacks, such as not being user-friendly and too cluttered on one canvas. Therefore, a one-stop design sprint application is designed using activity-centered design (ACD), which is an activity-focused approach to help users carry out design sprint activities. One iteration of a low-fidelity prototype and two iterations of a high-fidelity prototype resulted in a high-fidelity prototype of Sprinster, an application that provides media and guides users in design sprints step by step. Usability testing is conducted to assess the achievement of the application’s usability and user experience goals, i.e., effective to use, efficient to use, easy to learn, and helpful. The results show that the prototype is effective to use with a success rate of 100%, efficient to use with a time-based efficiency (TBE) of 0.33 goals/second which is almost five times compared to physical media (0.07 goals/second), easy to learn with a Single Ease Question (SEQ) score of 6.59 out of 7, and helpful with an Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) value/usefulness subscale score of 6.55 out of 7.

We present how to integrate Design Sprints and project-based learning into introductory visualization courses. A design sprint is a unique process based on rapid prototyping and user testing to define goals and validate ideas before starting costly development. The well-defined, interactive, and time-constrained design cycle makes design sprints a promising option for teaching project-based and active-learning-centered courses to increase student engagement and hands-on experience. Over the past five years, we have adjusted the design sprint methodology for teaching a range of visualization courses. We present a detailed guide on incorporating design sprints into large undergraduate and small professional development courses in both online and on-campus settings. Design sprint results, including quantitative and qualitative student feedback, show that design sprints engage students and help practice and apply visualization and design skills. We provide design sprint teaching materials, show examples of student-created work, and discuss limitations and lessons learned.

BackgroundStroke remains a major cause of long-term adult disability in the United States, necessitating the need for effective rehabilitation strategies for post-stroke gait impairments. Despite advancements in post-stroke care, existing rehabilitation often falls short, prompting the development of devices like robots and exoskeletons. However, these technologies often lack crucial input from end-users, such as clinicians, patients, and caregivers, hindering their clinical utility. Employing a human-centered design approach can enhance the design process and address user-specific needs.ObjectiveTo establish a proof-of-concept of the human-centered design approach by refining the NewGait® exosuit device for post-stroke gait rehabilitation.MethodsUsing iterative design sprints, the research focused on understanding the perspectives of clinicians, stroke survivors, and caregivers. Two design sprints were conducted, including empathy interviews at the beginning of the design sprint to integrate end-users’ insights. After each design sprint, the NewGait device underwent refinements based on emerging issues and recommendations. The final prototype underwent mechanical testing for durability, biomechanical simulation testing for clinical feasibility, and a system usability evaluation, where the new stroke-specific NewGait device was compared with the original NewGait device and a commercial product, Theratogs®.ResultsAffinity mapping from the design sprints identified crucial categories for stakeholder adoption, including fit for females, ease of donning and doffing, and usability during barefoot walking. To address these issues, a system redesign was implemented within weeks, incorporating features like a loop-backed neoprene, a novel closure mechanism for the shoulder harness, and a hook-and-loop design for the waist belt. Additional improvements included reconstructing anchors with rigid hook materials and replacing latex elastic bands with non-latex silicone-based bands for enhanced durability. Further, changes to the dorsiflexion anchor were made to allow for barefoot walking. Mechanical testing revealed a remarkable 10-fold increase in durability, enduring 500,000 cycles without notable degradation. Biomechanical simulation established the modularity of the NewGait device and indicated that it could be configured to assist or resist different muscles during walking. Usability testing indicated superior performance of the stroke-specific NewGait device, scoring 84.3 on the system usability scale compared to 62.7 for the original NewGait device and 46.9 for Theratogs.ConclusionThis study successfully establishes the proof-of-concept for a human-centered design approach using design sprints to rapidly develop a stroke-specific gait rehabilitation system. Future research should focus on evaluating the clinical efficacy and effectiveness of the NewGait device for post-stroke rehabilitation.

This paper examines the participation of various healthcare specialists and representatives in three design sprints aimed to co-design healthcare services through service design approaches. The design sprints were executed during the spring of 2019 in Gothenburg, Sweden; Tallinn, Estonia; and Rovaniemi, Finland, each lasting four to five days. This paper discusses the varied roles of healthcare representatives as participants in health-related design sprints and how these different participatory roles can optimise, support and catalyse design sprint processes to develop health services. The findings show that by being part of a team, healthcare representatives can learn to use design methods and design thinking, which have an impact on future development work for healthcare services. The value of the paper lies in presenting a practical framework for use in design sprints by healthcare representatives towards the development of health-related services.

New condensed modes of designing require new ways of differentiating design tasks. This paper presents a conceptual framework, the Task Ladder, which proposes such differentiation. It is based on a study of Small and Medium sized Enterprises and the tasks they work within ‘design sprints’ as part of a Danish design-driven business development programme. The real-time study of a number of case companies’ sprint processes indicated that the companies’ experiences with the sprint format, and the needs and obstacles that arose in the process, related to the scope and scale of the design sprint task in question. This gave rise to the investigation of the scope differences between design sprint tasks, which resulted in the conceptualisation of a task scale represented by the Task Ladder. The Task Ladder features four task scale levels that vary on several aspects, but overall, on degree of ‘openness’ of the task. This paper accounts for the development of the framework and discusses the usefulness of it, including interviews with design professionals who have used the Task Ladder in their work. The interviews demonstrate the usefulness of the Task Ladder in practice, stating that it provides an understanding and language to talk about development stages in design processes and hence serves as a tool for alignment of expectations, tracking of process progress, and planning future design processes. Finally, the Task Ladder lays the ground for further research on how design sprints can be adapted to meet different needs at the different task levels. KeywordsDesign sprintDesign tasksDesign problemsDesign driven business developmentDesign process

Considering the complexity of COVID‐19 and post‐pandemic learning conditions, how can we foster intercultural and real‐world learning outcomes in design studios? This article explores the possibilities for situated learning experiences to prepare students for industry. Design sprints and designathons are intensive experiences used in studio settings to solve big problems and test new ideas in a short period of time. During these experiences, teams are facilitated through a design thinking process in which they ideate, prototype, and test solutions. When designed effectively, designathons and design sprints have the potential to foster rich and authentic, collaborative and problem‐solving skill sets that are not otherwise possible in such a short timeframe in the traditional higher education learning environment. Through two learning examples of design sprints and designathons, both during and post‐pandemic and situated in the context of real‐world health problems, this article outlines the benefits and challenges of this learning approach.

This study aims to increase digital entrepreneurship motivation in students through design sprints and social learning. This research was conducted on 120 student informants who took entrepreneurship lessons from two different campuses in Papua. The research method used is qualitative. Data collection was done by way of interviews and observation. Data analysis using NVivo 12 plus software tools. The results of the study show that design sprints and social learning are very effective as strategies to increase digital entrepreneurship motivation for students. By implementing design sprints and social learning, students can find entrepreneurial ideas faster, are more creative and do not make students bored in class. This research also found opportunities and challenges for students to become digital entrepreneurs such as the lack of digital infrastructure, financial support and geographical conditions. However, there are enormous opportunities for the development of student digital entrepreneurs such as the lack of competitors at the local and regional levels, regional assets such as tourism, agriculture, fisheries and culture which can become digital business opport

What does it mean to invite vulnerable communities to the table in times of crisis not just as subjects, but as co-designers, in ways that facilitate nourishing and care-full relations? In this paper, we present the case of an online design sprint involving two groups of diverse participants in London and Tokyo as the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded. This modified design sprint model, which we describe as a ’care-full design stroll’, integrated co-design approaches with ethics of care to offer remote cultural experiences aimed at addressing inequalities of access and inclusion faced by the arts and cultural sectors in Japan and the UK. We analyse data from ethnographic observations, interviews and surveys in both nations to illustrate the challenges and opportunities of facilitating design sprints online. Our findings show how care-full co-design, underpinned by concepts of thinking-with and working-alongside, can be facilitated in online-only and/or limited terrains, in ways that nourish cultural organisations and their publics in times of great uncertainty. We conclude with a set of six design principles which provide practical recommendations for the effective facilitation of future care-full co-design sprints for groups working in a variety of settings.

The subject of social entrepreneurship has considerably gained traction in recent years. There is significant debate about the optimal teaching concepts for this subject, providing sufficient structure to students, supporting collaborative group work, and encouraging the students to follow up their respective projects after the course or even after graduation.This study analyzes how the method “design sprint” can positively impact social entrepreneurship education. Design sprints combine several design thinking and lean start-up practices into a structured multiday format. For this study the authors created a university course in the field of social entrepreneurship. To evaluate the impact of the course, a variety of qualitative data sources was collected, ranging from learning diaries to surveys, interviews, and observations. Results indicate that design sprints provide much-needed structure to students, especially if supported by the right digital tools. They also support collaborative group work by reducing free-riding behavior and providing valuable practical skills to students.

In Action Design Research projects, researchers often face severe constraints in terms of budget and time within the practical setting. Therefore, we argue that ADR researchers may adopt efficient methods to guide their design strategy. While agile and sprint oriented design approaches are becoming common in the practitioner domain, they have not been integrated yet in Action Design research. In this paper we illustrate how a Design Sprint could jumpstart a design process in an ADR setting, fostering a low-fidelity prototype into a minimal viable product. We do so by describing an extensive case on a health and wellbeing platform for elderly people developed in a Living Lab setting. We extract lessons learned on how to apply design sprints in Action Design Research, which can be reused to guide other situated design projects with limited resources.

International oil companies (IOCs) face competing pressures to reduce production to meet climate targets while delivering expected shareholder value. These competing pressures create a dissonance surrounding the future business strategy of IOCs. The Systems Transition Engineering approach brings experts together to work through an Interdisciplinary Transition Invention, Management and Engineering (InTIME) Design Sprint, to generate novel concepts for business options that relieve competing pressures in complex and unsustainable systems. This article details a case study of an InTIME Design Sprint conducted with oil industry experts involving a series of investigative workshops. The aim of the sprint is to generate foresight for IOC business pivot opportunities that resolve the dissonance surrounding IOC futures in a climate-safe world. A pivot opportunity represents a profitable business strategy within the bounds of what is feasible and socially acceptable. A theoretical oil company was used to test out hypothetical business scenarios throughout the steps of the sprint. The design sprint was successful in moving the oil industry experts beyond the dissonance and facilitating the foresight of viable and climate-safe business pivot opportunities for an IOC. This result represents a breakthrough that was previously considered unthinkable by the sprint participants. This work contributes a novel use case of the InTIME Design Sprint to an upstream energy system and introduces novel applications of tools to navigate cognitive dissonance and complexity within InTIME Design Sprints.

This paper looks into the value of design sprints as a means to training industrial design students towards practice within industry through the analysis of five consecutive years of design sprints with 280 interdisciplinary student teams of engineering, business students, and industrial design students. In the past several years, several design schools and many companies utilize the methodology of design sprints through human-centered design. This interdisciplinary ‘time boxed exercise’ is meant to rapidly focus product innovation to drive more valuable outcomes for the user; however, the design sprint also has considerable benefits towards teaching and ‘disciplining’ students for the work they will later engage in professional practice. Our results reveal three highly significant contributions of design sprints to aid students towards transitioning to professional practice including: (1) aiding towards working through design fixation, (2) creating ambiguity that leads to heightened innovation, and (3) making linkages between digital collaboration (what most students know well) and in-person collaboration.

Organisations across various industries are still exploring the potential of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) to automate a variety of knowledge work processes, including managing innovation. While innovation is often viewed as a product of individual creativity, it more commonly unfolds through a collaborative process where creativity intertwines with knowledge. However, the extent and effectiveness of GenAI in supporting this process remain open questions. Our study investigates this issue using a collaborative practice research approach focused on three GenAI‐enabled innovation projects conducted within different organisations. We explored how, why, and when GenAI could effectively be integrated into design sprints—a highly structured, collaborative process enabling human‐centred innovation. Our research identified challenges and opportunities in synchronising AI capabilities with human intelligence and creativity. To translate these insights into practical strategies, we propose four recommendations for organisations eager to leverage GenAI to both streamline and bring more value to their innovation processes: (1) establish a collaborative intelligence value loop with GenAI; (2) build trust in GenAI; (3) develop robust data collection and curation workflows; and (4) embrace a craftsman's discipline.

In keeping with the conference theme Future of Humanity: analysis, advocacy and action; we propose a skills-building workshop incorporating innovative learning practices and use of design thinking processes for a pertinent public health issue - homelessness. Complex problems, including homelessness, remain intractable due to a number of issues including policies, social norms, powerlessness and lack of knowledge. Leaving no one behind is the mantra of the programme for Sustainable Development Goals; the blueprint for a sustainable world. It is imperative to consider how this translates for homeless groups and ensure they are not left behind and continue to experience inequalities in health outcomes and hardship. Design thinking itself is an approach to problem-solving that is human-centred, focusing on empathy, idea generation and prototyping of solutions underpinned by designer thinking processes with consideration of feasibility and viability of solutions. We propose a 60-minute design thinking sprint for active, collaborative learning, building capacity and knowledge. Our proposed format incorporates creativity and innovative methods to engage with conference delegates, sharing of experiences and bringing the outside world into our session. This method frames a problem in a human-centric way by first understanding another's perspective and we propose to use the Stanford D. model: empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test. To introduce design thinking to address homelessness as a major public health issue.To undertake a design sprint with participants to address the health impact of homelessness through the development of low fidelity prototypes.To explore the application of design thinking to other complex public health challenges and as a tool for collaboration and problem-solving in public health. We will use the framework of a design sprint for the session: Introduction - 'Homelessness' as a complex public health challenge 5 mins Explaining Design Thinking and Design Sprints 5 mins Phase 1 - Empathizing: Understanding Homelessness 10 minsPhase 2 - Defining: What is a specific user challenge? 5 minsPhase 3 - Ideating: Brainstorm solutions 10 minsPhase 4 - Rapid prototyping: Building low fidelity solutions for testing 10 minsPhase 5 - Pitching: Presentation of prototypes 10 mins Summary and next steps for collaboration (Chair): 5 mins The workshop will use creative methods of engagement, including drawing, writing, storyboarding, constructing/modelling components to build end-user solutions for homelessness. The use of a design sprint format offers an alternative to either oral presentations or a panel discussion for collaborative and creative engagement with delegates. Both Chairpersons have used design thinking to consider homelessness for children, families and adults in Ireland. Key messages Design thinking provides testable innovations in service development for socially marginalised groups. Design thinking is a low cost, creative form that facilitates close collaboration between service providers and users.

This chapter presents six principles drawn from lived experience of running over 30 rapid design thinking and co-design sprints on diverse healthcare topics as part of the HEAL initiative. Starting with an explanation of the value of a co-design approach to healthcare and situating these activities as transformative learning experiences for attendees, the six principles address the empathetic role of the facilitator, the importance of looking for the positive, the need to work through the hard stuff, the value of enabling consumers to have their say, ways to facilitate important conversations, and how to ensure a memorable experience. The chapter ends with a research poem that highlights the importance of thinking differently about design sprints.