Introducing iDays into our Software Development Lifecycle has allowed Codal to come up with very scalable and innovative solutions.

1. Introducing Innovation Days to Your Project
By : Jenna Erickson, ​Codal Inc
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The ​mobile app development agency ​that I work for, Codal, recently introduced a new
project exercise called iDays (or Innovation Days).
An Innovation Day is an extremely collaboaration ideation session that takes place in
the discovery phase of a project. However, it is different than just any brainstorming
session mostly because of who is involved. Typically, we will involve our ​ux ui research
team, ​chicago app developers​, visual designers, and even the clients.
The ideas that come from these Innovation Days are diverse in a sense, the
approaches that a developer, versus the end user or the designer may take could all be
different. However, it’s good to receive perspectives of all parties in order to come up
with the best, most usable ideas.
How do you run an iDay?
Once the team that is participating has been assembles, it’s time to collect your
materials. You’ll need post it’s (as a ​UX design company​, we go through tons of post it’s
per week), questions, prompts, and a timer.
The prompts are usually kept general and open ended. An example prompt could be
“what do you think about the menu?”
On the other hand, some prompts can be much more detailed. When an iDay is
conducted after a research phase, questions will be much more specific. For example,
in a dating app project at Codal, research found that user’s may sometimes feel unsafe
while using any type of dating app. A great prompt after this research could be “how can
we make the user feel safe while using the app?”
Once a prompt is posed, everyone has “X” amount of seconds to write down as many
ideas as they can on post it notes. Once the timer is up, each iDay participant goes
around and discusses their ideas. Typically these ideas spark a meaningful
conversation about their ideas and solutions.

2. The leader of the iDay then takes the post it note and places it in a category on the
whiteboard. Once everyone has shared their ideas,another prompt is given, and the
cycle starts again.
Once an iDay is completed, the room is completely filled with sticky notes.
It is then the UX designers job to break down the data that was received from the iDay.
Both qualitative and quantitative data are usually collected.
Introducing iDays into our Software Development Lifecycle has allowed Codal to come
up with very scalable and innovative solutions.
UX Design & Mobile App Development Agency
www.codal.com