luxi for designers

Lean User Experience IntensiveDesigner Edition

Janice Fraser Founder/[email protected]@luxrco@clevergirl

Tim McCoy Director, Integrated Product [email protected]@seriouslynow

LEAN UX INTENSIVE, DESIGNER EDITION 01/2011 [email protected] [email protected]

Tim, introduce yourself.


Now janice’s turn.


Ok. Now you.


Today: 3 Chunks

1: What other people have figured outLean Startup, Agile

2: What we think we have figured outProduct Stewardship, Lean UX

3: Reimagining UX PracticeValidation, Project Plans


Tomorrow

Use Lean UX framework in hands-on mini project with Change.org.


Daily Routine

9:00 Start 10:30 Break

12:00 Lunch (on your own)

1:00 Resume 2:30 Break

5:00 Done


Now that’s out of the way...onto our first chunk:

“Stuff other people have figured out”


Steve Blank introduced “Customer Development” in...um...2006.

The 2nd/3rd edition is (c) 2006. The idea goes back perhaps a decade before that.


In 2010, Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovitz wrote a shorter, better book.


About 1,720,000 results


Here’s my distillation...

“Customer Development in One Page”

LEAN UX INTENSIVE, NOV 2010 [email protected]

[email protected]

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[email protected]


People, their goals & needs

Sketches and prototypes

“New user” experiences

CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT = UX!!?


Get out of the building!


For the first time, user-centered design

methods have momentum in the

business community.


What opportunities does that afford us?

What demands does it place on us?


+ +

reduce wastemake products

customers want

incremental releases


41,000 views(past 12 mos)

Entrepreneur in Residence

(2010-2011)

17,741 followers(1,738 listed)

Fall 2011(Random House)


When the science of startups includes User Centered Design as

one of its tent-poles, then we designers have a new opportunity

to do great things.


Validated Learning Reducing cycle time, rather than building fast


Agile Sprints VelocityPointsIterationsContinuous Deployment

Only part of the story!

Lean Cycles

THINK

MAKE

CHECK

PrototypesWireframesValue PropLanding PageHypothesesCompsDeployed Code

A/B TestingSite Analytics

Usability TestingFunnel

Sign-ups

Generative ResearchIdeation

Mental modelsBehavior Models

Test ResultsCompetitive Analysis

Reduce cycle time, not build time


What we bring is 10* years of experience, methods, and

methodology

*20, 30, 50 years


The LEAN part: A word about INVENTORY buildup and WASTE

Make a design

decision

Discover that it

wasnʼt right

Like this...Nobody clicked.

3 months

3 hours

...how long?

...how much time?

...effort?

TIME


When* the business community begins to measure the value of

user experience, they will invest in it as a driver of value, rather than

a cost to be minimized.

*Note Bene: “When” is now. [high five your neighbor]


Tell the apple 90% story.


Lean means...• Keep your inventory low. • Talk to your customers.• Make something they want.• Prove your ideas and your interfaces.


How do you do good user experience work in a lean environment?


PROVE IMPROVE


Agile fundamentals


The Manifesto for Agile Software Development

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it.

Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.


Agile values

• Transparency

• Shared responsibility

• Adaptability

• Simplicity

• Continuous improvement


Agile characteristics

• Cross-functional teams

• Open, collaborative environments

• Break down work to small, digestible chunks

• Conversation replaces detailed documentation

• Bias against front-loaded engineering & design

• Focus on “customer value,” “business value”

• Rapid, incremental delivery


Elements of an agile process

• Visioning / Inception• Story / task generation and

estimation• Release planning• Sprint / iteration planning

• Demonstration / acceptance• Daily stand-up• Retrospectives• Physical or virtual project

tracking

Roles in agile teams

Scrum

• Product owner• Scrum Master

• Technical lead• Business analyst (SME)

• Developers• Testers• Coach

XP

• Customer

• Tracker• Programmers

• Testers• Coach


Agile practices you should care about

• Test-Driven Development

• Functional tests

• Pair programming

• Continuous deployment

• Refactoring


Fishbowl

Product Stewardship and the integrated teamThe role of UX in agile environments

Some awesome team diagrams

45


What’s wrong with this picture?


Product Owner is an overloaded role

• Represent business needs– hold product vision– feature definition and prioritization– communicate project status

• Ensure project success– negotiate release dates and contents

– manage profitability / ROI

• Collaborate with the team– maintain product backlog

– detail / clarify requirements– provide subject matter expertise

– be voice of the user

– participate in daily meetings

– review work results


Strategic and tactical UX are under-represented

• Product vision and framework under-developed• User research and feedback not well done or understood• Good interaction design practices lacking• Design professionals spread too thin

Problems we can address by integrating design

Too up-front• Too many assumptions

• Can’t address changes• Time-intensive

documentation

Too late• Not cohesive

• Never enough time• Lipstick on a pig

We begin by integrating design into the team

50

The Integrated Team includes full-time design members working with and alongside developers.

• Research and analysis of customer and user behaviors, needs, and goals

• Contextual design that balances business needs, user goals, technical opportunity


A Product Steward advocates for UX

The Product Steward is a strategic design role that works with the Product Mgr to set direction and shepherd the product to success.

• Advocate for user-centered design

• Understand and represent user goals

• Provide creative direction

• Negotiate releases with Product Manager

• Pair-design with other team members

• Assess work results

• Guide product vision through delivery


Product Ownership is a shared responsibility

Product Manager

• Represent business and customer needs

• Understand market opportunities

• Communicate project status

• Prioritize features and releases

• Collaborate with team

Product Steward

• Represent user needs and goals

• Manage product vision, framework

• Provide creative direction

• Collaborate with team


Lean User Experience Fundamentals


Lean User Experience is a cross-

functional, principle-driven process

characterized by rituals that predispose

teams to predictable, high-quality, high-

velocity user experience outcomes.


What are the principles?

1. Design + product management + development = 1 product team

2. Externalize

3. Research with users is the best source of information

4. Focus on solving the right problem

5. Generate many options and decide quickly which to pursue

6. Recognize hypotheses & validate them

7. Rapid cycles: think/make/check

Users

Needs

Uses

Features

User Stories Themed Releases

1. BLAH2. BLAH3. BLAH

Bob can...

people

product

(INSERT BUSINESS THINKING HERE)

This Week

(CREATE SKETCHES, WIREFRAMES & PIXELS)

Lean UX process

whywhathow

Lightweight

Low-Fi

Lo-Tech

External

Face to Face

Collaborative

Generative and Decisive

Fast

Repeatable

Routinized

Goal Driven

Lean UX methods are

Outcome Focused


WORKING SOFTWARE

ABSTRACT CONCEPTS

PyramidSticky StrategyEcosystem Map

Personas (scenarios)Design Target

Activity Map

Sticky Triage

Story Boards

Story MappingIteration Planning

6-Up Sketching

2 or 3-Up SketchingTest CreationWireframesCard Sorting

Sketch BoardsPrototyping (many kinds)

Greyboxing

Black Hat Session

Pair Production/Design

Design BiblePattern LibrariesHousecleaning

strategy

user

uses

feature planning

IA, IxD, UI

detail design

cohesiveness

The UX field has loads of methods that will work lean. (plus a few of my own making)

Listen (talk*) to people**

People who match your design target

Usertesting.com

Customer acceptance testing with paper prototypes

A/B testing

Surveys

Watch people use competitors

Behavioral metrics

Usability testing

OPTIMIZATION

CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT

** WHO?

* ABOUT WHAT? What they do, what their life is like, what they use, what their problems are, how they meet their needs now?

Heat mapping

generative

quantitative

Card sorting evolutionary

We also have methods to “get out of the building.”

WORKING SOFTWARE

ABSTRACT CONCEPTS

ideate

communicate

learn

improve

Wireframe checkPairing

Housecleaning

MeasureRedo

Write the “test” first*User need/quote as sprint name

Retrospective

Rituals for lean product teams

* Most important thing for the problem owner is to define and own the problem.


Activity

Map out for the design process you used for a recent project. Where were you working

with unvalidated hypotheses?


• How did you know your hypothesis was right? (what qualifies as validation?)

• Are stakeholders and SME’s validation?

• Invalidated vs unvalidated?

• What are some approaches you might take to shorten the cycle between hypothesis and validation?

Activity questions


What is a hypothesis?

it’s not “facts” but is “good information”

raw observation to FORM hypotheses

it’s not build-measure-learn, it’s learn-build-measure

getting out of the building doesn’t have to stop once development begins

As an agency, when you validate with client stakeholders you satisfy THEM (and get paid)

If you validate with end users you may NOT satisfy your client, and they’re paying you…

THIS CLIENT DYNAMIC MUST FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE TO BE SUSTAINABLE

validate your product to your customer (scoping the consulting relationship)

validate THEIR product to THEIR customer

Activity observations


Validation...


Um.

PROPOSAL

Web portal for freelance traveling nurses and their recruiters

An exercise in Lean UX approaches to project planning


Project environment

Many nurses at most hospitals are freelancers on 13 week contracts who travel from job to job in search of personal adventure, good pay, and professional opportunity.

Our company has relationships with hospitals to post jobs and relationships with nurses to fill them.

We plan to replace our mix of thick client apps and web forms with a fully-web based system that gives our nurses better ways to guide their experience and our recruiters better tools to manage their relationships.


Project objectives

Help nurses:

•search for jobs

•apply for jobs

•work with their recruiters to land jobs

•find temporary housing at job location

•connect with other traveling nurses

•access HR and career management information

Help recruiters:

• match nurses to jobs

• fill high-value jobs

• work with nurses to land jobs

• manage their stable of nurses


How it’s done, old school

Months 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Research & Modeling

FrameworkDetailed Design & SpecificaMon

Development -‐-‐>

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

R1 alpha R1 beta R1 release R2 alpha etc...


Exercise objectives

Envision a plan using Lean UX practices and agile methods. Your approach should seek to:

• Minimize wasted time and effort

• Identify most valuable opportunities

• Learn from user feedback and behavior

• Reduce cycle time between posing a hypothesis and validating it

CAVEAT

Don’t short change the research and vision, they’re vital to understanding the business and their users so you can affect significant change.


Final thoughts.


See you here at 9am.

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