Design Bits #1
Plus, how the Mafia "designed" their own system in Italy
Welcome to the first edition! If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’m an advocate for how we can use design to improve the way we run our lives and our businesses. I spend a lot of time digging into resources, so here’s my attempt to share my findings and inspire us to see design everywhere.
Here are this week’s links
A question I get asked a lot is how often a startup should do design sprints. Monthly? Weekly? I think that can vary by company. The more important question is WHY you are doing a sprint. Design sprints are a great tool, but if you use them for the wrong reason, it will be a waste of time. This article from Google does a great job of helping you walk through when you should do a sprint, and how best to plan for the sprint.
I recently stumbled on this interesting museum case study by 31 Volts. Does anyone just ‘go to a museum’? How can a business see how its customer perceive it, end to end? See how the design team at 31 Volts used shadowing techniques to gain a new perspective on visitors and change the way museums do outreach.
How do you know how much design to ‘throw’ at a problem? For every project, whether personal or work, there is always a balancing act between cost, speed and quality. Read this article to see how you can determine what’s required to win.
Bonus Random Link
The mafia didn’t come to prominence in a vacuum. It all started with lemon vineyards in Italy. Apparently lemons were central to the start of the mafia, and they designed their “work” around this initially. Listen to this Planet Money podcast: When Life Gives You Lemons, Start The Mafia?
Parting Words
I’m a scout at Microtraction. Know any good startups on the African continent with some traction that need funding? Let me know!
Keep well,
Uyai