Hi again. Let's think back to those five design sprint phases we introduced earlier: understand, ideate, decide, prototype, and test. Now we're going to go beyond introductions and really get to know each phase. A traditional design sprint lasts five days, with each phase taking up to one full day. The whole process is super hands on. Creative collaboration is at the core of every phase. Let's explore how a team might conduct a design sprint. Okay, imagine you're a UX designer for a company called Cycling Enthusiasts. Your latest app lets cyclists track their distance ridden and calories burned. Sadly, the app sales have started slumping, kind of like how your energy would start slumping if you had actually taken a long bike ride today. So, how can a design sprint solve this problem? Let's find out. The understand phase sets your sprint on the right track and helps your team get a clear picture of the design challenge. Your team takes time to learn from experts and engage in creative discussions with a lot of different people from other departments and industries. These conversations help you more clearly understand the design challenge. But what's the first rule of UX design? The user comes first. This means everything your team does during the sprint should focus on the user. So now your team understands the design challenge. For our imaginary sprint, let's say sales are slumping because the app doesn't offer bicyclists anything new. Your team arrives for phase two of the design sprint, pumped full of inspiration and ready to ideate some solutions. To get the creative juices flowing, you start this phase by coming up with ideas and building off of them to create solutions. Once you've got the team thinking, each participant takes time to sketch and present their ideas. Don't worry about your drawing skills here, the idea is what matters. On top of all the ideating that happens in phase two, you also need to start planning for user testing, which happens in phase five of the sprint. During user testing, you'll have a diverse group of people test your product and provide feedback. To be able to do this, you need to start recruiting users that fit your target profile now, so the sprint stays on schedule. By the time you reach phase three, you have a lot of potential solutions for your design challenge. Now it's time to decide which solutions you want to build. Together, your cycling app team discusses each possible solution, and eventually decides on the one solution that is most likely to excite users and increase sales. For example, the solution might be a feature that uses the cyclist's location to create customized routes that meet their fitness goals. Sounds pretty cool, right? Finally, you'll wrap up the day by creating a step-by-step blueprint for your prototype. Next, phase four: prototype time. You're now ready to build the first version of your new app feature. At the end of this phase, you don't need a finished product, just something realistic enough to test with users. By focusing only on what the user experiences on their screen, your team creates a working prototype of the new customized routes feature. Way to go! During this phase, you also finish prepping for user testing by confirming the test schedule, finalizing interview questions, and making sure your prototype is good to go. Alright, it's been a busy week, but you did it. You reach the final phase: testing. Now it's time to put your prototype in front of users. As users test your prototype, you observe how they react and then interview them about their experiences. Your team gains critical insight about changes that need to be made before you launch the new feature. To recap the five phases of design sprints are: understand the scope of the design challenge, ideate possible solutions, decide on the most viable solution, create a workable prototype, and finally, test that prototype with actual users. Congrats, you made it to the end of the sprint. Now your team knows exactly what to adjust before launching the new cycling app feature. Promotions for all! Design sprints are a big part of the UX design world, so you'll probably participate in a lot of them and even lead a few someday. Coming up, we'll explain why design sprints are beneficial to UX designers.