user experience & extreme programming: an experience report

X U XeXtreme User eXperience

AOTB2013

Mike Rawling

@hedshot@Unrulymedia

How one team melded UX with XP

Mike Rawling

@hedshot@Unrulymedia

Any questions welcome……later, please…

Allowed interruptions*

a) A Zombie Apocalypseb) Nothing.

* Oh, and please set your phones to silent…

MeMike RawlingSenior UX Engineer @Unruly Media, at London HQ

UX engineering history dates back to 1998…

…Consulting, designing, engineering, leading, coaching, training….

Teams and initiatives for Tesco, Wiley, Camelot, Konami, LoveFilm and Granada and ITV

Also at Agile Cambridge, 25/9/2013

Engaging with UX Nurturing empathy ..What? with a pencil???

kinky! Making and keeping it real Finding stuff out Some other working

practices

Themes

About Unruly MediaUnrulymedia.com

About Unruly Media

Unrulymedia.comabout Unruly Media

3 development teams:

each consisting of about about 4 XP, java-centric, stupidly intelligent programmers

team has greatly varying levels of experience and interests

Extremely varied experience of customer facing front-end

1 UX guy

Unrulymedia.comDev@Unruly Media

Unruly Analyticsprovides the datathat proves the ROI

o Be inspired. Get real-time access to share of voice data for your video content across the social web. Identify trends and learn about what consumers are sharing.

o See the bigger picture. Know the true social reach of your campaign by tracking official, unofficial and derivative copies across social media platforms.

o Prove it works. Measure your Social ROI against historical brand performance and benchmarked competitors.

about the product

Unruly Mediaour dev area:

and the real project challenges…

Unruly Analytics Offer insight into social media performance

Teach about social media and video - and visual analytics!

User base has a *great* variety of users with…

…equally varied understanding of statistical analysis

…To do so Elegantly!

Committed to XP principles

Adventurous Spirit

The CEO said: ‘Do Lean Start-up’…

…I heard ‘Try Lean UX...’

The project’s philosophy…

engaging with user experience

engaging with uxchallenges

There are Classic challenges with UX + Agile…and some most particular to XP:

Differences between Agile and UCD Agile accentuates acceptance and unit testing –

where does usability testing fit in to that? XP criticised for ‘being light on user side of

software’ and ‘best used with non-GUI intensive applications’

Lacking explicitly defined processes defining requirements engineering, interaction design, etc.

engaging with ux

posters and evangelism

engaging with ux

engaging with ux

doing intros, tech talks & coaching

engaging with ux

engaging with ux

a UX Wall

engaging with ux

engaging more closely with testing

engaging with ux

user interview script templates for anyone to use

engaging with ux

nurturing user empathy

nurturing empathy

Challenge: creating a bridge between team and users

Polarised argument: Do I choose personas? Abso-f-lutely!

nurturing empathy

nurturing empathy

Personas workshops

nurturing empathy

nurturing empathy

Personas: poster-ised

nurturing empathy

Persona-centric / named stories

nurturing empathy

As {persona name} I would like to…so that…

nurturing empathy

Persona ‘stickers’ on story cards

nurturing empathy

“You want me to do what with a pencil?”

or…

Visualising the product

UI, UX & Interaction guidelines

documentation (*gasp*)

Can’t draw, won’t draw (Programmer…) “I can’t draw – let alone ‘design’!” “design is fluffy!” “designers don’t know sh*t” “I’m not a designer” “wtf?”

Later… “…but that’s not the best design” “..I won’t do it like that…” “that’s just too

wacky/unusable/unusual/custom/etc…”

“I could do better…”

“I can’t draw”

visualising the product

Visualising interfaces

visualising the product

The Dark Secret Of Interaction Design

Enter: Design Charrettes*!!

Allegedly based regular critiques at an art academy in Paris – possibly Beaux arts(also called ‘Design Studio’)

About regular ‘Critiques’

Students race to finish…

Useful and effect urgency in the process!

*Since then documented in Lean UX, by Jeff Gotthelf

visualising the product

Design Charrettes are…

Select an Epic feature to attack

Review Personas and each pick one

Then…as Pairs we…:

① Brainstorm single, key features that persona might need and want

② gather and share – pick top results

③ then pairs pick a favorite ideas and sketch 5 UI ideas for them in 5 minutes

④ gather and share – pick our favorite sketches

⑤ then pairs pick a favorite sketch and sketch a complete UI or wider flow

⑥ gather and share – The whole group chooses result!

visualising the product

Step one examples:

visualising the product

visualising the product

Design charrettes: amazing results ensue!

visualising the product

Visualising interfaces

Physical storyboarding…

visualising the product

Visualising interfaces

New technique: ‘physical user flows’:

visualising the product

visualising the product

Physical user flows

making and keeping it real:

new ways of prototyping

Making it real……and Keeping It Real

“Prototyping: where the wheels touch down on the tarmac”

Super-Lo-Res Prototypingmaking it real…

Lots of sketching > prototyping:

making it real…

Making it real

Functioning wireframes as prototypes

making it real…

Making it real

Good, bad, ugly of this approach…

making it real…

Finding stuff out: research

ux research

The challenges

I can’t research all possible (agile) futures

Fast turn around times!

I really don’t want to hold anyone up / be a blocker

B2B context is uniquely challenging

Remote, unmoderated user testing tools

ux research

research

Micro surveys and feedback

ux research

research

ux research

working practices

working practices

Challenges…

working practices

working practices*Humour…*

Super-huddles, Pairing and even Tripling

+

+ +

+ +

+

working practices

UX & project sponsor pairing (e.g. our CEO)

+

+

working practices

UI Squad: UX, Sponsor and Product Manager

+ +

working practices

what really worked? Results??

engaging with ux

Ongoing! The fun continues…

tricky to identify and measure success criteria? There is much discussion about UX now The CEO refers to personae in slide shows! UX even crept into team members LinkedIn CVs…!

Conclusion: we’ve started on quite a long journey together with clear momentum but still much unlearning and new skills to pick up

“CEO refers to ‘customer related stuff’ using the term ‘personae’ now!”

So! What next???

what next??Never stop refining

– find what works for you

*Really* magnetic personas!

what next??

Stop Press: it’s the UX Headlines!

what next??

The Weekly Google Analyst

what next??

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Q&A

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Any questions?

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Thanks for listening!Still hungry? Contact me…

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Michael.rawling@unrulymedia.com@hedshot