I. Context and Outcomes
As most things, this project started as an idea: Wouldn’t it be handy to have an app to write what we think about movies after we watch them? One of our team members asked while we were leaving the theatre. This idea remained in our heads for a while until one day we met over coffee and decided to make it happen.
Before starting the project, our first goal was to set the appropriate context. To accomplish this, we decided to set our focus on creating outcomes in the form of testable hypotheses. These hypotheses gave us a clear strategic vision of the work to be done and shifted our conversations from the things we want to produce (outputs) to the value we want to create (outcomes).
Problem statement
As a starting point, the team put together a brief problem statement to identify the gap between the current state of the problem and the desired state. This statement gave us a clear focus of the work to be done and it defined strategic constraints.
“The current state of the movie app market has focused primarily on movie streaming, providing movie details and reviews, and the creation of movie lists. These apps were created with a focus on movie searching and watching; and fail to consider a relevant part of the ‘post-movie-watching’ experience of the user – the processing of thoughts, opinions, and emotions due to movie watching. Our initial focus will address this gap by building mobile-friendly note taking experiences tailored to people who write down their thoughts after watching a movie”
Assumptions
The team brainstormed the project assumptions using the problem statement as a point of reference. This exercise allowed us to initially define who our primary users are, what problems we are solving for them, how to best solve this problem, etc.
Out of all the assumptions generated, only a handfull were chosen to move forward at this stage of the project. We decided to place our focus on the following assumptions:
- 1. Our primary users have a need to write down their thoughts after watching a movie.
- 2. This need can be solved with an iOS app that allows users to write down notes about movies.
- 3. Users might need other features that allow them to search for movies, see movies details, and create movie lists to complement their note taking.
- 4. Movie note taking is similar to regular journaling, and it is used to process thoughts and emotions after watching a movie.
- 5. Our users are people in their 20s and 30s who regularly watch movies and feel comfortable using a mobile device as a writing tool.
The remaining assumptions were put in a “parking lot” list to be explore later on
Hypothesis statements
Once the project assumptions have been defined, we transformed them into project hypothesis statements, which are easier to test and validate. Hypothesis statements also helped us to think through context first, as well as, the problem we are trying to solve.
Lastly, these hypothesis statements served as a guide to plan the next step of the project: Research!