Stealing other people's ideas is fun.

I’ve been a UX designer for more than 15 years and a big part of the job involves looking at what other people have done for inspiration. Another, more cynical way of saying that is, the job involves looking at other people’s work for ideas that you can steal and use as your own. I’m kind of joking of course, it’s not really like that but borrowing and adapting are a huge part of any design work.

The first time I learned about Design sprints was in 2017 while on a course about web page optimisation. The trainer told us briefly about how design sprints allow you to develop ideas and test them with real users quickly. He also told us about something he called a “Design sketching session.” It’s a way for a team to generate lots of ideas quickly and it demonstrates why stealing ideas can be fun.

When to do this:

• When you have a small problem to solve but you want some inspiration
• When there are multiple solutions but you don’t know which one to pick
• Usually it involves one screen of an app/website or 2-3 steps in a process for an app/website.

Example:

• On long flights people can order 3 meals (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner)
• They should be able to do this with the screen in front of them (iPad mini size)
• Breakfast, lunch and dinner are at set times
• Passengers must order 30 mins in advance to give us enough time to prepare the meal to their requirements
• Some passengers have allergies / dietary requirements
• We want all users to tell us what they want

Who:

• A team of people (Min 2 - Max 8)
• Anyone can do this. You do not need to be skilled at drawing.
• In fact it is best when it is a multi disciplined team
• Bring the developers, testers, marketeers, product owners etc etc

​What you need:

• 2 pieces of blank A4 paper for each person
• A sharpie or marker pen for each person
• A timer (can use your phone or a website)

Step 1: (10 minutes)

• Introduce the problem you are trying to solve
• Be specific and to the point
• Allow people to ask questions and clarify any points
• Confirm everyone understands the problem

Step 2: (10 minutes)

• Sketching session round 1
• Give everyone 10 minutes to sketch ONE solution to this problem
• They may have several ideas but they should choose the one solution they think will work best

Step 3: (10 minutes)

• Give everyone a few minutes to show their sketches and explain their solution
• Allow everyone to ask a few questions for clarification
• Everyone should be thinking about which ideas they like the best and which parts of the ideas they would like to steal

Step 4: (10 minutes)

• Sketching session round 2
• Give everyone another 10 minutes to sketch ONE solution to this problem
• They can improve on their original idea by borrowing ideas from other people, they can come up with a totally new idea inspired by what they saw or they can just steal someone’s idea entirely
• Their final sketch should simply be what they think is the best solution to the problem and it doesn’t matter whose idea it was.

Step 5: (10 minutes)

• Give everyone a few minutes to show their sketches and explain their solution
• You will find that in the second round ideas are more refined and that there is more consensus about what a good solution should be
• You might even find that everyone has sketched the same solution

Step 6:

• ​You now have some clear solutions for your problem!

This can be a great replacement for a typical 1 hour meeting where you can get you and your team together and actually achieve something productive and have fun at the same time.

Let me know in the comments if you try this out or let me know if you want other ideas for collaboration - I’ve got loads of fun exercises you can do.