Balance Talking and Doing! Using Google Design Sprint to Enhance an Intensive UCD Course

Abstract

Design, evaluation and enhancement of teaching activities in usercentred design (UCD) is characterized by limited research. This is particularly paradoxical as effective high-quality teaching is a key prerequisite for professional work in UCD. This paper reports the development of a two-week intensive UCD course for university-level students in an international setting. The first edition of the course ran during the summer of 2017. Based on both qualitative and quantitative data collected from students, the course was enhanced and a new edition that introduced Google Design Sprint (GDS) was conducted during the summer of 2018. Similar student feedback data was collected during both years (i.e., 2017 and 2018). In both editions, the course included lectures and hands-on use of UCD and interaction design methods in a design assignment. In this paper, we focus on the 2018 edition of the course and the students' qualitative and quantitative feedback on that edition. The results illustrate that students liked the intensive teamwork, clear structure, and the international setting of the course. The main concerns from the students were on inefficient time management and the lack of user involvement in GDS. However, GDS was preferred to the traditional teaching methods, as the students saw the rapid development cycle to provide a good balance of talking and doing.

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“…To date, the Google Sprint has been used and investigated in the scientific literature for specific purposes such as designing software products in startups, assessing innovation techniques in small and medium-sized companies, and in educational settings to enhance a user-centered design course for university students (Nashrulloh et al 2019, Martins et al 2020, Larusdottir et al 2019. However, to the authors' knowledge, no research has been conducted to investigate the use of the Google Sprint for designing digital platform business models.…”

Approaches and Challenges of Inclusive UX Practices in the Software Industry

“…The User-Centred Design (UCD) sprint is a wellstructured design sprint process that incorporates UCD methods [12,15]. It has evolved over several years and has been used in courses and industry settings.…”

Tutorial on UCD Sprint: Inclusive Process for Concept Design

“…It is a fast and cost-effective process to define what to design in the early stages of software development, especially focusing on concept design. The UCD Sprint process was developed through three editions of an intensive interaction design course, focusing on UCD methods in the first edition of the course [5] and integrating the Google Design Sprint process [6] and UCD methods in the second and third editions of the course [7]. In 2 all course editions, students with different backgrounds worked on concept design challenges in teams.…”