SHELTER UK - DESIGN SPRINT FACILITATING
The Design Sprint framework was developed at Google, to align teams under a shared vision with clearly defined goals and deliverables. During my time at the charity Shelter UK I facilitated a design sprint with a team of 5 people from all departments from Marketing and Content to Legal. I guided the 5 days sprint through brainstorms, individual and team workshops as well as prototype and user testing sessions.
Ending dss discrimination
Our housing system is in a state of emergency. Rough sleeping has more than doubled and we have 300,000 people living without a home. Go onto any housing website now and you will see it. ‘No DSS’. In 2019 Britain some landlords are telling people ‘don’t apply if you are on benefits’. Shelter UK is looking for solutions to empower people to take action against this discrimination.
The current system
Team structure
At the moment, the only way Shelter is able to help is by referring people that need help to their in-house lawyer. As there is only one person on this position and a high demand, her role is very much case-to-case and she can’t help more than a few families every month.
The team
Our team was made up 6 people from different departments from copywriting to legal.
THE GOALS
Help people on benefits identify their experience as discrimination
Teach sectors that this is discrimination
Insurance to insure DSS claimants
Government to give guidance and support
Online channels (Rightmove, Zoopla) to stop advertising ‘No DSS’
Landlords to proceed on case to case basis
DAY 1&2 - PROBLEM AND SOLUTIONS
Monday’s structured discussions create a path for the sprint week. We asked the experts to share their knowledge with the team (housing lawyers) and together started a plan.
Tuesday was sketching day. The team was guided through the Crazy Eights exercise as well as solution sketches in the afternoon.
DAY 3 - DECISION AND STORYBOARDS
Wednesday morning was focused on choosing the best solution that would go through prototyping and testing. The team agreed on the best one and we went through storyboarding exercises in the afternoon.
DAY 4 & 5 - prototyping & testing
With the storyboards finalised we were able to start prototyping. As a designer I built the prototype on Sketch and Invision while mock up a quick product identity at the same time. Meanwhile the content team was focus on copywriting and finding users for testing the following day.
FINAL PROTOTYPE
Invision prototype for users to play with. The prototype imitate a chatbot experience.
The chatbot prototype empowers people to take legal action by populating complaint letters for their specific cases.
USER TESTING LEARNINGS
We had both remote and in-person user testing sessions. This allowed us to understand user behaviours and needs better as well as to pin point some of the journeys flaws. Key learnings were on the Homepage section, the user doesn’t understand what Shelter as to offer from the beginning and this is one of the main point the team will have to improve.