1. Agile UX (Breakfast Edition)
Ross Philip – Principal UX Consultant

2. Good Morning…

3. What we will cover…
• Agile development: What and Why?
• The UX Challenge
• Adapting UX for Agile
• Lean UX
• Agile & Lean UX in the wild: Experiences, problems
and solutions

4. Traditional Waterfall
• Risky and Expensive
• Standish Group Chaos Report (2000)
 25% of all projects fail outright
• UK Study (1027 Projects) – 13% did not fail
 Waterfall scope management single largest factor
• US Defence Dept. (1995) - $37 Billion USD
 46% of systems did not meet needs (cf functional spec)
• 6700 Projects (Larman)
 4/5 key factors for failure attributable to waterfall method
 Inflexible requirements
 Problems with late integration

5. Waterfall vs. Agile
• Visibility - based on delivery of working software
• Adaptability - Iterative planning and feedback copes with changing
requirements
• Business Value – planning, feedback and delivery of working software
• Risk – Greatly reduced throughout. Adaptability and working software.
VersionOne Diagram

6. Agile manifesto [1]
• Individuals and Interactions over processes and
tools
 Social and Collaborative – Goals & Motivation
 Small Teams – Close Quarters
• Working software over comprehensive
documentation
 Eliminates Waste
 BUT – No big design up front

7. Agile manifesto [2]
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
 Customer involved throughout
• Responding to change over following a plan
 Adaptable
 Identify and resolve issues ASAP
Lockheed Skunk Works and Extreme programming
 (KANBAN/JIT) – Lean processes

8. The State of Agile (2012) – Highlights [1] n=4048
• More Companies practicing Agile
 84%
• Practicing longer
 36% 2-5 years (38% 1-2 years) practising Agile
• Being Applied on More Projects
 76-100% projects – 37%
• Increasing number of teams and projects
 2-5 teams (38%), 10+ teams (30%)
 0-5 projects (59%), 10+ projects (30%)
• Methods - Scrum & Scrum variants (72%)

9. The State of Agile (2012) – Highlights [2] n=4048
• Failure
• Issues at organisational level
• Barriers to further adoption

10. The State of Agile (2012) – Highlights [3] n=4048
• Concerns
• Reasons to adopt
• Benefits

11. What we will cover…
• Agile development: What and Why?
• The UX Challenge
• Adapting UX for Agile
• Lean UX
• Agile & Lean UX in the wild: Experiences, problems
and solutions

12. How Does Agile Account For Design?
Conceptual
Design?
Little if any up
front
How will product
service be
understood?
Focus on
Architectural
modelling &
programming
User Interface
Design?
Not explicit
Product owner -
concept
User
Involvement?
User Stories, but
no users
UX Track?
Not indigenous
Functional Testing
UAT vs. UX

13. Agile UX Challenges
• UX work needs to be adapted to fit
• Need to present and explain users' needs
effectively
• Big design up-front is not Agile
• No developer engagement with UX

14. Who best to represent the users?

15. Shift in Focus – The 3 Is
Business Intentions
Shared Vision
Org Landscape
Business Model
Content Strategy
Competitor Insights
Customer Insights
‘Super Users’
In Context
Call Centres
GOOB!
Social Media – The Buzz!
Rapid Personas
Tech Implementation
Tech Choices - & Constraints
Patterns & Libraries
Legacy Considerations
Non-functional Requirements
UX in Agile needs to stay focussed on the 3 areas

16. Collocation – Almost essential
• Cross-functional teams – Lose traditional barriers
• The problem with developers!
 Essential Empathy
• Efficient Communication
• Quick Collaboration
• Efficient Problem Solving
• Better team spirit

17. What we will cover…
• Agile development: What and Why?
• The UX Challenge
• Adapting UX for Agile
• Lean UX
• Agile & Lean UX in the wild: Experiences, problems
and solutions

18. Agile UX Approach
Sprint 0 Sprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3 Sprint 4 Sprint 5
Design 1 Design 2 Design 3 Design 4 design 5
Dev 1 Dev 2 Dev 3 Dev 4 Dev 5
Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Test 4
Monday Friday
pm
am
Recruitment
Test Planning
Design Workshop
Sprint Planning
Usability Testing
Showcase &
Retrospective
Review Feedback
Prioritise Actions
Finalise Test
Planning
Design
Design
Customer Research
Design
Design
Stand Up Stand Up Stand Up

19. UX Design
Has always been…
• … about collaborating with customers
• … iterative
• … customer feedback driven
• … accommodating to change
• … multidisciplinary (at least in concept)
But
• Spread design effort throughout, not upfront
 Bad Waterfall!!!

20. Agile Experience Design Manifesto
• Inclusive – Rather than elitist
• Emergent with direction – Rather than up front
• Integrated and collaborative – Rather than handed
over the fence
• Considerate of Customer, business and technology
needs – Rather than biased towards a single factor
(or two)

21. Agile Design - Iterative & Incremental
• Develop wireframes/Prototypes to support User Stories
• Design only what is needed and when
• Collaborative Design
 Sketching/Paper-based
• Lo-fi Wireframes
 Balsamiq ideal
• Beware Hi-fi designs e.g. Axure
 Costly to change
• The ‘Wall’
• Collocation - Efficient

22. Key Agile UX Support Methods
• User Research – Identify and Validate Stories
 Ethnography/Contextual Inquiry
 Interviews
 Surveys
 Focus Groups
 User Panel
• Personas
• Story Mapping
• Collaborative Design
• Wireframing/Prototyping
• Rapid Usability Testing

23. This is about… observing customers first hand
as they interact with your service.
You get… a better understanding of the
experience from the users/customers’
perspective, in their context of use.
 Get Native
 Be A Customer
 Service Safari
 Contextual Analysis
Advantage… Brings the data to life by observing
real customers in real situations.
Disadvantage… Time consuming and can be
expensive.
Ethnographic studies

24. This is about… meeting customers, one-to-one
or in a group and asking them about their
experience
You get… deep insight into customers’ goals,
motivations, behaviour and feelings.
Advantages… good understanding of
customers’ perceptions/reactions and needs
Disadvantages… can be costly and time
consuming. Not contextual - Saying vs. Doing!
 Surveys
 Interviews/Contextual Interviews
Focus groups

25. Understanding your
users and their
haenges y
Personas
This is about…ensuring that the target
users are represented in the design
process, guiding product decisions
You get…believable personas,
understanding, & empathy by outlining
the key characteristics, goals, pains,
needs & desires
Advantage… Keeps users represented
throughout process
Disadvantage… Not a substitute for user
research. Can be time consuming

26. Agile/Lean Persona (Proto Personas)
1.
Sketch
Name
2.
Behavioural
And
Demographic
Info
3.
Pain Points and Needs
4.
Potential Solutions

27. Understanding your
users and their
haenges y
Story Mapping
This is about…ensuring that User Stories
are prioritized whilst maintaining
meaningful groupings for development
and testing.
You get…full picture of backlog and easy
chunking of functionality for releases.
Advantage… They support rich discussion
about journeys, potential problems,
solutions and validation.
Disadvantage… Require additional time
investment but easy to learn. Requires
space!

28. Collaborative Design
This is about… tapping into the broad
range of perspective, understanding and
problem solving skills across the team,
stakeholders and users.
You get… more potential solutions based
on a broad range of knowledge and
perspectives on the problems space.
Advantage… greater likelihood of finding
the most effective solution (s).
Disadvantage… can be time consuming
and ideally requires participants to be tech
savvy

29. Wireframes/Prototypes
This is about…ensuring that you explore
design options, and identify and resolve
issues as early as possible in the design
process.
You get…feedback on the usability, user
experience and design whilst rapidly
iterating the solution
Advantage… clear visualisation and
testing of design solutions and rapid
improvement
Disadvantage… avoiding the temptation
to over-design

30. Rapid usability testing
This is about…capturing feedback on
developing design solutions for rapid
iteration
You get…feedback on the designs as they
are being used by representative users
Advantage… very insightful feedback
Disadvantage… ensuring users are
representative, time consuming, and
interpreting results
 3-6 participants per round (Panel)
 30-45 min session
 Remote Testing/Observation
 Priority stories (unknowns/high risk)

31. Other Techniques
• Hot Air Balloon/Speedboat – Drivers & Anchors
• Product in a Box
• Competitor Review
• Analytics
• Customer Journey Mapping
• Design Mapping & Sketchboarding
• Storyboarding
• IA Design & Analysis
• Expert Analysis

32. …Design & Research…
Requirements are assumptions…
Only if it makes a difference…
Just enough and no more…
Oh… and iterate!

33. What we will cover…
• Agile development: What and Why?
• The UX Challenge
• Adapting UX for Agile
• Lean UX
• Agile & Lean UX in the wild: Experiences, problems
and solutions

34. Lean UX
• Combination of
 Design Thinking
 Agile
 Lean Start-up method
• Characteristics
 Build/Measure/Learn
 Creation of rapid prototypes to test market assumptions
 Feedback to evolve much faster
 Reduce waste – Inc. frequency of contact with customers
to avoid incorrect assumptions

35. Lean UX Principles [1]
• Cross-functional teams – High level of collaboration
• Small Dedicated Collocated – Communication, Focus and Cameraderie
• Progress = Outcomes not output…
• Problem-focused teams (c.f. features)
• Remove waste – If it doesn’t lead to the ultimate goal, remove from the
process
• Small batch size – create only what is needed at any given time
• Continuous Discovery – Engagement with customer and feedback
throughout
 What is customer doing
 Why are they doing it
 Research done by the entire team

36. Lean UX Principles [2]
• GOOB!
• Shared understanding – over time… Documents not needed
• No Rockstars, Gurus or Ninjas…team-based collaboration rules
• Get the work out there - Out of heads and onto the wall - immersion
• Making over analysis – Value in creating an idea, then taking it to
customers
• Learning over Growth – Figure out what to build before scaling it
• Permission to fail – Need to experiment with ideas and most will fail.
Culture needs to encourage this. Experimentation breeds creativity.
 Risk taking > Big Ideas. Frequent failures > Mastery of skills.
• Lose the deliverable – focus on design process achieving outcomes not
artifacts

37. Concept/Plan
• Contextual Analysis
• User Profiling/Persona
development
• User Needs Analysis
• IA Analysis
Design
• Wireframing
• Prototyping
• Co-Design Workshops
• Competitive Design
Evaluate
• Usability Testing
• Expert Evaluation
• Eye-tracking
• Accessibility Audits
Live Support
• Customer Surveys
• Analytics
• A/B Testing
• Multi-variate Testing
User-Centred Design (UCD) Process

38. Lean UX Process…look familiar?
• Demos & Prototypes
• Non-prototype
• E-mail/Google Ad
words
• Landing Page/Button to
nowhere
• Collaborative Discovery
• Continuous Discovery
• Testing & Feedback
capture
• Iterate
• Collaborative Design
• Design Studios
• Style Guides
• Prototyping
• Assumptions & Problem
Statements
• Known/Risk
• Hypothesis
• Outcomes
• Personas
Declare
Assumptions
Create an
MVP
Run an
Experiment
(Market
Signals)
Feedback &
Research

39. Continuous Discovery - Testing
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Start Recruiting
What to Test?
Refine what
will be tested
Refine what
will be tested
Test Script
Finalise
Recruitment
Testing
Review
Findings
(Whole team)
Next Steps
based on
Findings
Weekly Cycles…

40. Continuous Monitoring…
Customer
360°
Diary
Studies
Focus
Groups
Card
Sorting
Usability
Tests
Third Party
Reviews
Customer
Support
E-mails &
Call Centre
Analytics
User Forms
Surveys

41. …So what’s the difference?
What do you think?

42. What we will cover…
• Agile development: What and Why?
• The UX Challenge
• Adapting UX for Agile
• Lean UX
• Agile & Lean UX in the wild: Experiences, problems
and solutions

43. Agile in the wild
So, what have been your:
• Experiences?
• Issues/Challenges?
• Solutions?
• Thoughts?

44. Some Useful Resources (Agile & Lean UX)
Web Resources:
• Jeff Gothelf Blog -
http://www.jeffgothelf.com/blog/
• Lindsay Ratcliffe Blog -
http://guigrrrl.blogspot.co.uk/
• State of Agile Survey -
http://www.versionone.com/state-of-agile-
survey-results/

45. Eye tracking
Questions?

46. Thank You
Ross Philip
Principal User Experience Consultant
User Vision
55 North Castle Street
Edinburgh
EH2 3QA
T: 0131 225 0853
E: ross@uservision.co.uk
W: www.uservision.co.uk