In this presentation I will discuss some lessons learned from case studies like Radio +, deredactie mobiel, … as well as bring some more personal stories on how we are experimenting with lean and agile principles at VRT to make products together with our users. These different experiences have spurred questions about concepts like ‘the user’, ‘sprint 0’, ‘lean startup’ and different roles of people involved in online product design. My main concern, therefore, is currently with trying to find out why, how and when to introduce ‘users' in the agile development process for, in the end, we are all striving to 'put the people first'...

1. People first
People First
Tim Van Lier

2. We are all trying to make
the right product for the
user, right?

3. Always a struggle to
incorporate the user in the
(development) process,
right?

4. What is your role in the
team to make this
happen?

5. Who am I…?

6. I’m Tim Van Lier
works for the Digital Product Center at VRT
father
loves cinema
science fiction
dreamer

7. … but what am I today?

8. I used to be an academic

9. The learning years
User researcher/@ iMinds-SMIT/Grounded theory

10. Grounded Theory
Construction of theory through the analysis of data.
Rather than beginning with a hypothesis, the first step
is data collection, through a variety of methods.
‘wikipedia’

11. The ‘real’ world
Digital advisor/Product development/Agile/Scrum

12. The golden age?
Lean startup/Prototypes/Experiments/User validation

13. Witnessed a positive
evolution from waterfall to
agile, but what about the
user?

14. Two cases...

15. Radioplus

16. Initial goal:
renew the (old) online
radio player

17. Research questions:
How do people experience radio?
What needs is it fulfilling now?
What is the purpose of online
radio?

18. Research
-Design thinking-

23. Explore & Create
-Lean UX-

24. “Fidelity-driven instead of
feature-driven iterations”
powerpoint
presentation
working
prototype
beta

25. Feedback
-Lean UX/Agile-

26. Beta
more than 1000 e-mails in
couple of months
user validation and input for the
next iteration

27. Methods

28. Learnings: focus groups, reports,
statistics, customer journey
Prototypes: presentation, working
prototype, beta
Feedback: Blog, E-mail

29. Deredactie mobile

30. Hypothese:
Mobile news should focus on
short, fast news ; for the updater

31. Explore & Create
-Lean Ux-

35. Feedback
-Agile-

37. Methods

38. interview / co-design
prototype to learn with real users
google analytics
facebook group, polls
survey with google forms
beta
Usabilia

40. What have I learned so far?

41. If design is not to be an
afterthought, we need to
rethink sprint 0 in agile
development

42. First we need to find the
pain points
Not start with solutions

43. Go into the wild

44. Every time you get
feedback from the user, it
gives insights!

45. People First, users second

46. a user wants features
people want to fulfill needs

47. From people, to user,... to
even team member

49. What am I…?

50. I’m a UX researcher

51. Thank you!
Questions?

52. Tim Van Lier
tim.vanlier@vrt.be
@vanlier