Design for StartupsToolkit

The Design for Startups Toolkit

The Design for Startups Toolkit was written and edited by Kate Armstrong and Laura Kozak, and designed by Sarah Hay (slowandsteady.co).

Design for Startups is led by Kate Armstrong, Director, Living Labs, and Haig Armen, Associate Professor of Design + Dynamic Media at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

Funding for Design for Startups has been provided by the British Columbia Innovation Council (BCIC) and the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) along with 2013-2015 company partners Foodee, The Angler’s Atlas, Cognilab, SilkStart, Control, Discover Media House, Koho, Pressboard, Highline, Bitlit, Ethical Deal, Spark CRM, Print2Peer, Spacelist, Retsly, Farm at Hand, and Callings.

© Living Labs, Emily Carr University of Art + Design, 2016

About Living Labs

Design for Startups is an initiative of Living Labs at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. We support creative projects, social venture and entrepreneurship driven by art and design; build projects and partnership models that use art and design as a mechanism for innovation and community building; and connect with organizations to develop adaptive design labs that create an experimental “third space”.

About Emily Carr University of Art + Design

Established in 1925, Emily Carr is the only specialized, accredited, public, post-secondary university in British Columbia solely devoted to education and research in the creative sector and its associated knowledge economy. We merge research, critical theory and studio practice in an interdisciplinary environment, strengthening our work by the integration of our personal and professional practices. Our strategy, facilities, partnerships and resources are intentionally student-centred to foster dialogue, expression and open connections in support of the next generation of creative and cultural leaders. Emily Carr is located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

http://slowandsteady.co

Contents

About Design for Startups ....................... 4

What is Design for Startups?

Why Design?

Who is the Toolkit for?

Principles .................................................7

Business Model Canvas

Human-Centred Design

Snapshot ................................................. 9

The Anatomy of a Startup

Key Players and Skill Sets

Design for Startups: Setting up the Relationships

Defining a Great Design Problem

The Hybrid Studio

Project Logistics ..................................... 12

Structure and Timeline

Location

Budget

Case Studies: .......................................... 13

Conclusion and Outcomes ...................... 14

FAQs .......................................................16

Resources .............................................. 17

Call for Participation: Design for Startups

Design For Startups Project Outline

Project Schedule

Template for Weekly Reports from Designers

License and Accreditation ..................... 25

About Design for Startups

The role of the designer is evolving within the context of fast-paced, agile startup companies.

Design for Startups is an initiative of Living Labs at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. The initiative was established in 2013 by Kate Armstrong and Haig Armen.

Living Labs aims to increase the ability of students at Emily Carr University of Art + Design to engage with entrepreneurship and innovation in ways that play to their strengths as designers and artists. Goals include investigating emerging ideas in culture and industry, identifying gaps where art and design can contribute, and arranging partnerships that investigate these gaps.

In the past few years we’ve witnessed the explosive growth of accelerators globally. Though these organizations have a variety of approaches, the basic goals are the same: accelerators engage and mentor companies in order to create the conditions that companies need in order to grow.

But we saw a gap in how accelerators were working with design. Accelerators were building the capacity of their portfolio companies in every way except for design. There was no mechanism to support mentorship, talent acquisition, or product development through the specific lens of design, which in the digital context means that the critically important element of product usability was being left out.

We also saw a gap in how universities were working with accelerators. Accelerators are a fairly new phenomenon, and though many universities have jumped onboard the project of establishing their own accelerators to launch faculty and student-led projects, there were no models that demonstrated how university research and development might engage with accelerators external to their organizations.

We wanted to go where the companies were - and many of the most exciting, emergent companies in the city were part of communities created by accelerators, incubators and co-working spaces.

With these goals in mind, we set out in 2013 to find a new way for the university to work with accelerators in the local technology ecosystem. This project became Design for Startups.

4

What is Design for Startups?

Design for Startups is a research project through which we have developed and tested a new model for connecting a university - in our case a specialized art and design university - with an accelerator.

The methodology of Design for Startups is to embed a design lab inside an accelerator in order to create the right conditions for integrating designers into early-stage company teams.

Through this project we worked with two accelerators (GrowLab, Highline) and 20 companies (Foodee, The Angler’s Atlas, Cognilab, SilkStart, Control, Discover Media House, Koho, Pressboard, Highline, Bitlit, Ethical Deal, Spark CRM, Print2Peer, Spacelist, Retsly, Farm at Hand, and Karmahire (now Callings).

GrowLab launched in 2011 and operated until 2014, when it merged with Toronto-based Extreme Startups and became Highline. GrowLab focused on early-stage web, mobile and software as a service (SaaS) companies. Highline became a VC-backed accelerator focusing on web, mobile and SaaS companies who have gained traction and are ready to scale. The focus of these accelerators on technology startups in the web, mobile and SaaS space meant that our work took place primarily in the context of Interaction Design.

Basic Model

Establish a relationship with an accelerator

The accelerator identifies five companies from their portfolio who want to engage in the program, or signs on to the Design for Startups project if they operate on a cohort-based model.

Design for Startups engages a group of five design researchers from the University.

Each company defines a design problem.

Designers are matched with the companies based on these design problems.

The designers work with the companies onsite at their offices for 15 hours a week throughout a 12 week period.

Students blend design methods with Lean UX methodologies in order to move quickly and iteratively with the company team on a defined problem. Past examples of design problems have included designing the creation tool from idea to wireframe for Cognilab (Zoe Hardisty), and creating icons and data visualization to represent user libraries for BitLit (Ben Westergreen).

Students meet in a weekly studio and receive critique and feedback, which keeps the design projects on track and creates a network of support for the students.

At the conclusion of the 12 weeks, we hold a public-facing event to present the results, and companies have the option to hire the designers into positions on their team.

Why Design?

Though it is increasingly clear that design is a key differentiator of success and innovation for business, emerging companies do not always consider design at the outset of their product development.

It is increasingly difficult for a company to differentiate themselves based on technology alone. Successful companies have have not only better technology, but their products must be usable, aesthetic, and human. Failing to address fundamental principles during product development relating to what a product does and how it does it, or who the product is for, can result in a product that is not able to function effectively, or one that fails to establish product-market fit.

Who is the Toolkit for?

This toolkit is available for wide-spread use by educational institutions, companies and a variety of organizations. The model is flexible and can be adapted to suit different contexts, disciplines, and industries. Some possible use cases:

Art and design institutions who are looking for models and precedents for how to integrate emerging talent with accelerators or incubators

Comprehensive universities who aim to establish relationships between their students and external organizations, and who wish to build beyond the internship model

Accelerators or incubators who are looking to build artists and designers, or other skill sets such as developers, into their programmatic structure in order to support a systematic context of growth for the companies in their portfolios

Co-working spaces who would like to integrate talent from universities, schools or training organizations with their tenant companies and organizations

Any organization such as an association or fund who has a group of companies in their portfolio that could benefit from a specific kind of expertise that can be provided by another organization

Part of our research is to understand how this model will be used and adapted in different contexts: we ask only that we are appropriately credited. See License and Accreditation.

6

Principles

“Human-centered design is a process that starts with the people you’re designing for and ends with new solutions that are tailor made to suit their needs.” (IDEO)

Business Model Canvas

The Business Model Canvas is a strategic management and entrepreneurial tool that allows a company to describe, design, challenge, invent, and pivot their business model. This tool is helpful in the Visioning and Framing phase, getting designers acclimatized to the problem space within which they’re working, as well as helping to define possible risks or opportunities within the existing model. The Business Model Canvas is based on nine key segments:

Customer Segments are the groups of people and/or organizations a company or organization aims to reach and create value for with a dedicated Value Proposition.

Value Propositions are based on a bundle of products and services that create value for a Customer Segment.

Channels describe how a Value Proposition is communicated and delivered to a Customer Segment through communication, distribution, and sales Channels.

Customer Relationships outline what type of relationship is established and maintained with each Customer Segment, and they explain how customers are acquired and retained.

Revenue Streams result from a Value Proposition successfully offered to a Customer Segment. It is how an organization captures value with a price that customers are willing to pay.

Key Resources are the most important assets required to offer and deliver the previously described elements.

Key Activities are the most important activities an organization needs to perform well.

Key Partnerships show the network of suppliers and partners that bring in external resources and activities.

Cost Structure describes all costs incurred to operate a business model.

Profit is calculated by subtracting the total of all costs in the Cost Structure from the total of all Revenue Streams.

7

(Source: Strategyzer.com)

Human-Centered Design

Human Centered Design is an approach that aims to build empathy with the people that will be using a product or service. Whether designing a website, an experience, or an object, the principles are the same: you must do it with the person in mind. What are their goals, desires and pain points? Who are they and how does this product fit into their lives?

The methodologies of human-centered design are somewhat standard in their approach, and involve user research in a real world context to determine what a user needs, based on what their interactions are within a physical or digital space. Phases of this work include user research, ideation, selection, prototyping, and testing. This becomes an iterative cycle, where testing feeds back into user research, to refine the product, object or experience until it is beautiful and useful.

A great resource written by people we admire at IDEO, that has more information about human centered design and about design methods generally, can be found here: [designkit.org/human-centered-design]

Lean UX and Agile Design

A key resource for us for Design for Startups has been Jeff Gothelf’s Lean UX1. Lean UX is a widely influential text that integrates principles of Lean business with the tools and methods of user experience and user interaction design. These methods are aligned with the human-centered design methodologies we teach at Emily Carr, and have been key to evolutions in the wider context of business and technology in terms of articulating the gaps and overlaps between design methods and software development methods.

The day to day work that happens in the individual Design for Startups projects employ many of the design strategies recommended in Lean UX, along with other methods and tools as driven by the Faculty Lead.

1 Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden. Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience. Sebastopol: O’Reilly, 2013. Print.

THE AGILE MANIFESTO IS BASED ON TWELVE PRINCIPLES:

1. Customer satisfaction by early and continuous delivery of valuable software

2. Welcome changing requirements, even in late development

3. Working software is delivered frequently (weeks rather than months)

4. Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers

5. Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be trusted

6. Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (co-location)

7. Working software is the principal measure of progress

8. Sustainable development, able to maintain a constant pace

9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design

10. Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential

11. Best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams

12. Regularly, the team reflects on how to become more effective, and adjusts accordingly

8

http://www.designkit.org/human-centered-design

Snapshot

Though the value of creativity and design is widely understood in contemporary business culture, there are no definitive models for bringing designers into the mix.

The Anatomy of a Startup

“A startup is a company working to solve a problem where the solution is not obvious and success is not guaranteed,” says Neil Blumenthal, cofounder and co-CEO of Warby Parker. Operating in the early and unstable stage immediately after inception, startups can be characterized by their competitiveness, agility and enormous potential for growth. Typically, startups are made up of small teams, and are striving to define their business model as they race to become profitable.

An explosion of internet startups in the 21st century has seen the emergence of a huge sector of new business models and products that solve a variety of “pain points” - everything from being stuck without a cab while dozens of cars pass you by, to needing a platform to sell handmade goods from a remote location. For these companies, understanding end users - including their motivations, habits, and pain points - is urgent and fundamental to developing viable and profitable business models.

Key Players and Skill Sets

Internet startups often start with a small team that includes a business lead or CEO and a tech lead or CTO. Though the value of creativity and design is widely understood in contemporary business culture, there are no definitive models for bringing designers into the mix.

Add a designer and you have a highly agile and diverse set of skills on your team. Designers, trained as critical problem-solvers, can contribute enormously to the conceptualization and implementation of business ideas when they’re at the table with business and technology leads from the beginning.

Designers:

• ask the right questions to reveal risks, opportunities and define new problem-solving paths

• help companies understand the needs of their end users

• rapidly prototype and test ideas prior to implementation

• design user-friendly and human centered interfaces

BUSINESS LEAD (CEO)

TECHNOLOGIST (CTO)

DESIGNER

9

Design for Startups: Setting up the Relationships

Establishing a collaborative relationship early is key to the success of Design for Startups. To have the greatest impact, designers need to be at the table with company leads and heard as an equal. When designers are assigned tasks in a service role, they are are unable to effectively research or propose shifts in approach.

We always introduce the project to participating companies with these relationships in mind. Seek participation from companies that are agile enough to integrate new feedback from a designer, and designers that are mature enough to take a lead role.

Defining a Great Design Problem

When working with a designer, it is critical for companies to establish productive and open-ended design problems. A great design problem should begin with an objective or goal, rather than a deliverable. For example, rather than saying “we would like you to design a newsletter”, a company could say “we want to increase user engagement”. Good solutions often take a different form than companies might have expected.

Catalyst

Idea driven

Ability to secure investment and lead team

Figures out “how”

Aware of technical possibilities, considerations and risks

Creative and practical problem solver

Ability to rapidly develop and test back-end solutions

CEO

CTO DESIGNER

10

The Hybrid Studio

The Design for Startups model relies on input and support from a Program Director or Faculty Lead who works with designers throughout the duration of the project. This allows a group of designers to come together for weekly check-ins, collaborative problem-solving and mentorship.

The weekly studio model creates a layer of support for students by positioning them within a group of five people who are going through the same process with their own companies. By meeting weekly and sharing problems, students get exposure to a broader range of project types and get a sense of common roadblocks.

This is the big difference between Design for Startups and a basic internship. In an internship, a company takes a student onto their team and manages their activity. A common problem in internships is that the management of a new and relatively inexperienced person becomes an additional challenge for a manager, which can sometimes outweigh the value of bringing that person into a project. This is particularly true when a company is operating in a high-pressure, fast-paced startup.

In Design for Startups, the relationship between a student designer and the company is buffered by the participation of the Project Director or Faculty Lead. The goal is to support the student as they navigate a new context and a new challenge, and to work in a hands-on way to keep a project on track. Students need the guidance, and companies need the success.

CEO

CTODESIGNER FACULTY LEAD

& PROGRAM DIRECTOR

COHORT/PEERS

11

Project Logistics

Structure and Timeline

The Design for Startups model is based on a 12-week cycle, with designers working with companies 15 hours a week. (For educational institutions, this timeline is intended to synch up with a semester cycle.) Designers have two weekly meetings: one with their company leads, and one with their Project Director/Faculty Lead and the other designers in the project. The remainder of their hours is spent working independently on the project.

Location

It’s preferable (but not strictly necessary) for designers to work onsite and to meet in person with company teams each week: we’ve seen lots of successful projects emerge from remote partnerships, and often companies are already operating in a distributed way across the globe. But what is crucial is that designers ask to be included in the weekly meetings of the company so that they can get a broader view of what is going on as part of the team. We hold our weekly meetings onsite with our partner accelerators.

Budget

Our model is based on hiring student designers into positions as Research Assistants. They are paid for their 15 hours a week at an hourly rate set by the institution. This is roughly 65% of the budget cost.

The costs for Program delivery comprise the remaining 35%.

We ask companies to make a cash contribution to the project budget.

We then raise the remaining portion through grants from government agencies such as the British Columbia Innovation Council (BCIC), the National Research Council (IRAP) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), who are mandated to support economic development, technological and industrial innovation and/or student training.

The cost of running the program is roughly $6000 CDN per designer/company pairing.

This model works within the context of our university because of the cohort-based model. By grouping students and companies together into groups of 5 for each program round, we are able to engage a Faculty Lead and make effective use of administrative capacity. This would not be financially feasible if we were working at this budget level with a single company, as there are economies of scale that happen when they are grouped together.

12

Case Studies:Working with Accelerators and Companies

Working with a cohort-driven accelerator

In 2013 and 2014, Emily Carr partnered with Growlab and worked with all five early-stage companies that were moving through Growlab’s 6-month program in tandem.

Working with a non-cohort based accelerator

In 2015, Emily Carr partnered with Highline, who made the opportunity to participate in Design for Startups available to their portfolio of companies, who were in various stages of development.

Working with companies at large

In 2015, Emily Carr began to open the opportunity for early-stage BC-based companies unaffiliated with an accelerator to participate in Design for Startups. This is a fundamental shift in the delivery of the program, and requires some additional coordination and support on the part of Emily Carr.

For in-depth case-studies of individual projects and companies, please see d4s.ecuad.ca.

The Design for Startups model is flexible, and has been adapted and tested for a variety of partnership models.

13

http://d4s.ecuad.ca

Conclusion and Outcomes

At Emily Carr this initiative grew from Living Labs, located within the research area in our specialized art and design university. The partnerships we established were with accelerators focusing on technology startups. This meant that we were primarily connecting through the lens of interaction design, with our designers joining companies developing digital web-based and mobile SaaS products.

We see this project as being broadly transferrable to a wide range of organizational types - not only accelerators, but also incubators, co-working spaces, industry associations, and VC-backed funds. Because design is a unique area of specialization that is required for any project, we can also see how an accelerator with a specific subject-area focus such as Cleantech, Fintech or Social Innovation could be approached by an art and design university with the same methodology.

We can also see how this model could be used within other subject or speciality areas, for example it could be used as a way to pair industrial designers with companies developing physical prototypes, or to connect designers with accelerators who are looking to grow companies in specific focus areas, such as the Internet of Things (iOt).

For us, the key has been that every product needs design—whether digital and interactive, industrial, or communication-based expertise, or more likely some combination of these—and that therefore the model becomes a flexible structure that can allow integrations of different kinds of artists and designers with a variety of companies or organizations who require their expertise.

We are publishing this open source toolkit in order to make the model available for wide-spread use by educational institutions, companies and other organizations and ask only that we are appropriately credited. See License and Accrediation.

We are interested to know how people use this model and how it might be adapted to suit different contexts, disciplines, and industries. Please stay in touch with us through livinglabs@ecuad.ca.

14

We see this project as being broadly transferrable to a wide range of organizational types - not only accelerators, but also incubators, co-working spaces, industry associations, and VC-backed funds.

mail to:livinglabs@ecuad.ca

References

Beck, Kent; et al. “Manifesto for Agile Software Development”. Agile Alliance, 2001. Web. Retrieved 14 June 2010.

“Business Model Canvas” and “The Value Proposition Canvas”. Strategyzer | Canvases. Strategyzer AG. Web. Retrieved 31 May 2016. .

Gothelf, Jeff, and Josh Seiden. Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience. Sebastopol: O’Reilly, 2013. Print.

“Human-Centered Design.” Design Kit. IDEO. Web. Retrieved 31 May 2016. .

“The Design Sprint.” The Design Sprint. Google Ventures. Web. Retrieved 31 May 2016. .

Osterwalder, Alex, Yves Pigneur, Greg Bernarda, and Alan Smith. Value Proposition Design. US: John Wiley & Sons. 2014.

http://agilemanifesto.org/strategyzer.com/canvasdesignkit. org/human-centered-designgv.com/sprint/

FAQs

How do you find companies to participate? We partner with an accelerator to reach companies in their portfolio.

How do you find students to participate and how are designers matched with companies? We post a general Call for Applications to design students in 3rd and 4th year and at the graduate student level. Applicants are selected based on a portfolio, CV and letter of interest, and then interviewed to confirm a fit for the project once we have information about what a company is trying to accomplish.

Do students get paid for their work? Yes - students are paid hourly (15 hours/week) as Research Assistants.

Do students get academic credit for their work? They are paid as Research Assistants, so they do not receive academic credit. However at Emily Carr students do have the opportunity to participate in this project through our co-op program, which does provide academic credit toward the work, but this is arranged on a case-by-case basis.

Where does the funding come from? In the past, the project has been funded through a combination of federal and provincial grants and cash contributions from participating companies. See Budget section.

How do you handle IP and confidentiality agreements? All IP developed by students working with companies through Design for Startups remains with the companies. However Emily Carr retains the IP relating to the creation of the collaborative model, which we are making freely available for anyone to use, with attribution, by providing this Toolkit.

In the past, companies have not requested that we sign confidentiality agreements, but as a school we are willing to do this, provided that students and faculty retain the right to publish results and outcomes relating to the projects. So far, we have not had any problems emerge around these issues.

What happens after the 12 week project? Between 2013 - 2016, 80% of participating companies hired their designers on to full-time positions. We have also seen students take these relationships and experiences and go on to work with other companies in the technology sector. Other students return to Emily Carr to complete their studies, and some are inspired to start their own companies. So far so good!

If I want to use the model of Design for Startups, do I have to acknowledge Living Labs or Emily Carr University of Art + Design? Yes. Design for Startups is made available through this open source Toolkit. We ask that you acknowledge Living Labs and Emily Carr University of Art + Design as the originators of the project on public project documents. Access logo files for Emily Carr University and Living Labs at d4s.ecuad.ca.

16

http://d4s.ecuad.ca/ecu-living-labs-logo-package/http://d4s.ecuad.ca/ecu-living-labs-logo-package/

Resources

Sample Templates:

Call for Participation

Project Outline

Project Schedule

Template for Weekly Reports from Designers

External Resources:

Lean UX (jeffgothelf.com)

Business Model Canvas (strategyzer.com/canvas)

Designer Fund (designerfund.com)

Human-Centred Design (designkit.org)

17

http://jeffgothelf.comhttp://strategyzer.com/canvashttp://designerfund.comhttp://designkit.org

Call for Participation: Design for Startups

18

Design for Startups is an initiative of Emily Carr University of Art + Design to connect designers to companies.

• You tell us what problem you would like solved• We match you with a designer who

has the skills in that area• Student designers join your company

team and work closely with you and your stakeholders to find solutions

• This is not an internship program: it is a design lab that happens in partnership with participating companies, accelerators and Emily Carr

• Student designers meet with other designers weekly in a lab setting, where they are supported by Emily Carr faculty to keep the projects on track

• This program was piloted in Fall 2013 and has been successfully implemented with 20 companies.

THE DESIGN PROBLEM The key is identifying an open-ended design prob-lem so that the designer can work with you and your team to form solutions. To develop a good design problem, begin with a goal or objective. For example, rather than saying “We would like you to design a newsletter”, you should say “We would like to increase our newsletter clickthrough rate” or “We want to increase our average revenue per user”. Good solutions often take a different form than companies might have expected.

PAST EXAMPLES OF DESIGN OUTCOMES INCLUDE:

• Leading a co-creative process of user research and branding to transform Karmahire into Callings

• Designing the creation tool from idea to wireframe for Cognilab

• Overhauling the form and function of email campaigns for Spacelist

• Creating icons and data visualizations to represent user libraries for BitLit

• Designing a mobile app for Koho

WHAT SKILLS TO THESE DESIGNERS HAVE?

These designers are usually in their 3rd or 4th year, with expertise in interaction design, industrial design, communication design, interface and usability, user testing, branding, user research and profiling, ideation and selection, and prototyping.

FUNDS Students are paid through Emily Carr and funds for the program come from the British Columbia Inno-vation Council (BCIC) and a contribution from each participating company. All hiring and administration is taken care of by Emily Carr in order to make the process as easy as possible for participating com-panies. Designers work onsite with your company for 15/hours a week for 12 weeks. Total cost to you: $1500.

Designers will work onsite with your companies in and will begin the week of . Designers should be invited to your weekly team meetings. Best results happen when designers are engaged in company teams and given 1) freedom to develop and float ideas within the area of focus that has been set out for the 12 week period and 2) connection with key company stakeholders when required.

TO PARTICIPATE Please send 2 - 3 lines about your company and briefly describe the design problem, challenge, or product area you would like to address. Please indicate whether you currently have a designer on your company team. Send to by .

FACULTY LEAD: SCHEDULE:

LOCATION:

COORDINATOR: START DATE:

HOURS/WEEK: END DATE:

The role of the designer is evolving due to the requirements of quick-paced, agile start-up compa- nies. Over the course of 12 weeks 5 student designers will form an innovative design research team at . Working on site, the RAs will work directly with the technical and business leads of the five companies-in-residence to explore and develop a new methodology for connecting design to Internet startups. The researchers will engage directly with product innovations as they emerge within the iterative, accelerated research processes used at . Student designers will consider existing design gaps, perform user interface/usability studies, and develop design strategies for the companies in residence.

DELIVERABLES:

The project will consist of a full design cycle and regular reporting. Assignments will consist of weekly short summaries, weekly design deliverables, and a final presentation and report.

FORMAT:

Students will work in a hybrid format both as members of a team-based design studio as well as branching off to work individually with companies. Each student will be assigned a company to en- gage with and establish appropriate deliverables but will work collaboratively to be supported within a design studio environment.

Design For Startups Project Outline

19

Design For Startups Project Outline (con’t)

20

LEARNING OUTCOMES: Upon completion of this research project, students will be able to:

• Solve problems by practicing a comprehensive user experience design process that includes analysis, concept development, synthesis of concepts in visual form, feedback and research;

• Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the issues involved in designing in lean or agile startup environments;

• Show competence in digital literacy, understanding specific issues and challenges in shaping models for emerging technologies.

• Respond to audiences, contexts and user experience needs in shaping design decisions;

• Move flexibly between different modes of thought (convergent/divergent, concrete/abstract, logical/intuitive) in responding to design problems and opportunities;

• Research and create design presentations, and document projects so as to reflect a personalized creative process;

• Develop complex projects iteratively, from conception to completion;

• Correctly cite references and acknowledge the work of others;

• Use skills, tools and technologies appropriate to each project, and present work effectively in visual and verbal form;

• Manage time efficiently and work effectively in teams or individually, as required;

• Assess their own and others work realistically, contribute to discussions and respond constructively to feedback;

• Demonstrate an understanding of the ethical issues involved in research, particularly as they apply to human subjects;

• Work with honesty and integrity.

ASSIGNMENTS: In approximately 200 words (bullet points are fine), describe what you did this week. This should include the following information on the provided template:

• Important deliverables met

• New ideas/lessons learned

• How you would change the methodology to work better

• Design Deliverables (Ongoing)

• Deliverable will coincide with the following project phases. Due dates are listed in the schedule.

• Vision and Framing

• MVP - Minimum Viable Product

• Wireframes, mockups, presentations

• Prototyping

• Feedback and Research

FINAL REPORT This will be assigned mid-project and to be presented at the conclusion of the project.

RECOMMENDED REFERENCES

Gothelf, Jeff and Josh Seiden. Lean UX. US: O’Reilly Media. 2013.

Osterwalder, Alex and Yves Pigneur, Greg Bernarda, and Alan Smith. Value Proposition Design. US: John Wiley & Sons. 2014.

Design For Startups Project Outline (con’t)

21

WK DATES AGENDA ASSIGNMENT

1 Kickoff Meeting

Review of outline and distribution of textbooks

Review of participating Highline companies

Pairing of RAs with companies and assignments

Section I of Lean UX book

Weekly Summary #1 due on:

2 Orientation

Welcome & Orientation at Highline

Meet + greet with company teams + RAs

Weekly Summary #2 due on:

3 Vision and Framing Phase I Weekly Summary #3 due on:

4 Vision and Framing Phase II + Presentations Weekly Summary #4 due on:

5 Minimum Viable Product (MVP) I Weekly Summary #5 due on:

6 MVP Phase II + Wireframes MVP Deliverable

Weekly Summary #6 due on:

Sample Project Schedule

22

WK DATES AGENDA ASSIGNMENT

7 MVP + Mockups Weekly Summary #7 due on:

8 MVP II + Presentation MVP Presentation

Weekly Summary #8 due on:

9 Prototyping I Weekly Summary #9 due on:

10 Prototyping II + Presentation

Feedback and Research

Prototype Presentation

Weekly Summary #10 due on:

11 Prototyping III Weekly Summary #11 due on:

12 Final Presentations and Wrap-Up Event FINAL REPORTS DUE ON

Weekly Summary #12 due on:

Sample Project Schedule (con’t)

23

Template for Weekly Reports from Designers

Design for Startups

Weekly Summary

Instructions: Fill out the following summary using bullet points and try not to go over one page. Email to weekly (see Project Outline and schedule for due dates).

Name:

Date/Week of Project:

What I Did:

What Worked:

What Didn’t:

What I Would Do Differently:

24

This Design for Startups Toolkit is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0).

The full text of this license is available here: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

Under this license, you are free:

To share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work To remix — to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified as “Emily Carr University’s Attribution” below. You cannot attribute the work in any manner that suggests that Emily Carr University endorses you or your use of the work.

Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

Share alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0).

Please see the full text of this license (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/) to view all rights and restrictions associated with it.

Emily Carr University’s Attribution:

© 2016 Emily Carr University of Art + Design. All rights reserved. d4s.ecuad.ca

Translations

If you translate this Toolkit (in compliance with this license), please notify us at livinglabs@ecuad.ca. Emily Carr University may choose to distribute and/or link to such translated versions (either as is, or as further modified by Emily Carr University).

License and Accreditation

25

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0http://d4s.ecuad.ca

Thanks to our supporters: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the British Columbia Innovation Council (BCIC), and Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

About Design for StartupsWhat is Design for Startups? Why Design? Who is the Toolkit for?

PrinciplesBusiness Model CanvasHuman-Centred Design

SnapshotThe Anatomy of a StartupKey Players and Skill SetsDesign for Startups: Setting up the RelationshipsDefining a Great Design ProblemThe Hybrid Studio

Project LogisticsStructure and TimelineLocationBudget

Case Studies:Conclusion and OutcomesFAQsResourcesCall for Participation: Design for StartupsDesign For Startups Project Outline Project ScheduleTemplate for Weekly Reports from Designers

License and Accreditation