As the CEO of Blue Star NZ, a global print marketing and communications firm, Jill Cowling had a great idea for an image-printing application, but needed help to ensure the product would meet their customers’ needs and provide strong value. After doing market research, she decided to use Tactical.ly’s Design Sprint process to validate the idea and develop an MVP.

A user-centred, objective-driven approach

Tactical.ly and its partner Ghost.st were selected to lead the process of validating this unique product concept, called PixPix, before Blue Star continued to invest in the idea. Blue Star needed our digital product and service design skills to help them focus on a user-centred, innovative and business objective driven approach to validation.

Design sprints have become an increasingly popular way for organisations to develop digital products and services. We love design sprints at Tactical.ly as we understand how quickly you can go down the wrong path with product design and end up with an expensive and unusable product. When we go through the process of validation early in the concept phase, we reduce risk and save money, ensuring we are building the right thing and building the thing right.

From validation to prototype in a few short days

The Design Sprint process with the PixPix product began with understanding the problem at hand and gathering data. This data helped Tactical.ly to inform the co-design team about the customer needs and wants. Tactical.ly led a process of analysing the customer feedback, reviewing customer data, and researching the competitive landscape, all to gain a better understanding of the problem.

Once the problem was understood, Tactical.ly then led the team into the ideation phase. This phase involved brainstorming and sketching out potential solutions. The goal was to come up with creative ideas that could help address the customer’s needs and wants, whilst still serving the overarching business objectives.

Once the team had identified potential solutions, we moved swiftly into the prototyping phase. In this stage of the process, the team created a series of rapid design prototypes of the product. We presented them and then voted on the best concepts. With a final idea of the prototype we wanted to take forward, we sought to test it with potential users and gain the further insights we needed, and to also identify any potential flaws or issues with the product at that stage.

The prototype testing phase was highly enjoyable. We took the prototype and ran it through a series of tests and experiments with real users to ensure they liked the product, would use it, and what they thought it needed to be better! This hands-on experience helped us to determine if the PixPix product was viable and if it should be taken to market.

The Design Sprint conducted by Tactical.ly resulted in the successful validation of the PixPix app and the development of a plan for an MVP. The process allowed Tactical.ly and the team to quickly and effectively identify the key features and user experience necessary for the product’s success. The Design Sprint also provided a clear path forward for the product, allowing Blue Star to move forward with the app with confidence.

Over the past year Tactical.ly has led the product design and development process, getting PixPix to a state of market readiness, along with developing a strong digital strategy for product release.

Lessons for success

The Design Sprint process used by Tactical.ly for PixPix is a great way to quickly develop a successful product or service. It ensures that the product or service is well thought out and effective from the start, before you spend a lot of money and time on it, as well as helping to ensure that the eventual product development process is efficient.

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