Designing a Solution & Assumption Mapping

Part 1: Architecture Design of the Solution

System Paths

Bubble Maps

Some of the areas our solution is trying to reconcile is helping people find the balance between studying, socializing, resting and facilitating the scheduling of their activities. This bubble map shows the different components of our solution. The pink/red areas in the middle represent the particular activities that our solution will try to focus on facilitating: the overlap between restful and/or productive activities with friends.

Part 2: Assumption Mapping & Testing your assumptions

Assumption Map

Testing Assumptions

Assumption 1: Who are our primary competitors?

Test: Comparative Research, Survey (see below) 

Assumption 2: Do people want our product if it existed?

Test: Survey (see below)

We are planning on creating a survey that would test our first two assumptions. Here are the questions we are planning on asking: 

• Do you like to work with friends?
• When you want to work with others, how do you currently schedule that? 
• How difficult is it to schedule times to meet and work with others?
• How cumbersome is it to do your scheduling?
• We are currently working on an app that helps people schedule when they want to work with friends (or someone random on campus), pick types of activities they want to do when they take breaks (talk to friends, explore campus, go on a walk, etc), confirm those times, and export the times to a calendar.
• Is this something you would be interested in trying out as an alternative to how you are scheduling times to work with friends? (yes/no)
• Please explain your answer to the previous question. 

Assumption 3: Are reminders for people to take breaks useful?

Test: 

• Study: text people to remind them to take a break every hour if they haven’t done so 
  • Then collect qualitative responses: 
    • what was that experience like? 
    • What did you like? 
    • How did this experience compare to you working normally?
    • What would you change? 
    • Did you find yourself forgetting to take breaks? 
    • Did the reminders impact your flow, if at all?