Lean UX presentation to the Agile UX Retreat, december 2010

1. LEAN UX
FOUNDATIONS
Janice Fraser
Lean User Experience Intensive
November 2010
janice@LUXr.co

2. 2010 Survey of Early-Stage Companies
93% say UX is a strategic differentiator
80% spend < $25k on design before launch
It’s too important to outsource.
Designers are here then gone.
By the time I get the work, we don’t want that
thing any longer.
I don’t know where to find the right person.
It’s too expensive.
LEAN UX INTENSIVE, NOV 2010 JANICE@LUXR.CO

3. “Anyone who makes decisions about how the product
should be is a designer*.
“Designer is a role, not a person. Almost every
developer on a team makes some decisions about how
the product will be, just through the act of creating the
product.
“These decisions are design decisions, and when you
make them, you are a designer.
“For this reason, no matter what your role on a
development team, an understanding of the principles
of design will make you better at what you do.
LEAN UX INTENSIVE, NOV 2010
Jesse Schell, The Art of Game Design, 2010 JANICE@LUXR.CO

4. CUSTOMER
DEVELOPMENT IN ONE
PAGE
LEAN UX INTENSIVE, NOV 2010 JANICE@LUXR.CO

5. LEAN UX INTENSIVE, NOV 2010 JANICE@LUXR.CO

6. LEAN UX INTENSIVE, NOV 2010 JANICE@LUXR.CO

7. JANICE@LUXR.CO

8. `
JANICE@LUXR.CO

11. Lean means...
• Keep your inventory low.
• Talk to your customers.
• Make something they want.
• Prove your ideas and your interfaces.
LEAN UX INTENSIVE, NOV 2010 JANICE@LUXR.CO

12. LEAN UX INTENSIVE, NOV 2010 JANICE@LUXR.CO

13. LEAN UX INTENSIVE, NOV 2010 JANICE@LUXR.CO

14. How do you do good user
experience work in a lean/
agile environment?
LEAN UX INTENSIVE, NOV 2010 JANICE@LUXR.CO

15. What slows teams
• Making decisions • Being in the weeds
• Not making decisions • Forest/trees
• Disagreements • Analysis paralysis
• Negotiation • Forgetting to move on
• Talking • Not seeing that you already
agree
• Not Listening
• Not noticing that you need to
• Meetings make a decision(!)
LEAN UX INTENSIVE, NOV 2010 JANICE@LUXR.CO

16. 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.
LEAN UX INTENSIVE, NOV 2010 JANICE@LUXR.CO

17. Launch fixes next
Make the lightest thing that’s checkable
inform your thinking by
talking to people
start by understanding the needs
of one person
What are the principles?
cross-functional or die
check what you make as you go. ux, business, and tech.
learn quickly
usability testing and a/b
what you think is less important than testing are the liver and
what users do spleen, not the brain or the
heart.
test what’s testable
Humans can’t predictably be
right the first time.
focus on solving the right problem
not build this product.
LEAN UX INTENSIVE, NOV 2010 JANICE@LUXR.CO

18. Lean UX process
Users
1. BLAH
why
Needs 2. BLAH
3. BLAH
ple
what peo
how uct
pro d
(INSERT BUSINESS THINKING HERE)
Bob can...
Uses
Features
(CREATE SKETCHES,
WIREFRAMES & PIXELS)
This Week
User Stories
Themed Releases

19. Lean UX methods are
Lightweight
Low-Fi
Lo-Tech
External
Face to Face
Collaborative
Generative and Decisive
Fast
Repeatable
Routinized
Goal Driven
Outcome Focused
LEAN UX INTENSIVE, NOV 2010 JANICE@LUXR.CO

20. The UX field has ABSTRACT CONCEPTS
loads of methods that Pyramid
Sticky Strategy strategy
will work lean. Ecosystem Map
(plus a few new ones that I put
together based on lean principles.)
Personas (scenarios)
Design Target
user
6-Up Sketching
Activity Map
Story Boards
uses
Sticky Triage
Story Mapping feature planning
Iteration Planning
2 or 3-Up Sketching
Test Creation
Wireframes
Card Sorting
IA, IxD, UI
Black Hat Session
Sketch Boards
Prototyping (many kinds)
Greyboxing detail design
Pair Production/Design
Design Bible
Pattern Libraries
velocity &
Housecleaning cohesiveness
WORKING SOFTWARE
LEAN UX INTENSIVE, NOV 2010 JANICE@LUXR.CO

21. They also have
methods for “getting
out of the building.”
CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT
Listen (talk*) to people**
Surveys generative
Watch people use
competitors
Customer acceptance testing
with paper prototypes
Card sorting evolutionary
Usability testing
Usertesting.com
Behavioral metrics
A/B testing
quantitative
Heat mapping
OPTIMIZATION
** WHO? People who match your design target
* ABOUT WHAT? What they do, what their life is like, what they use, what
their problems are, how they meet their needs now?
LEAN UX INTENSIVE, NOV 2010 JANICE@LUXR.CO

22. Possible rituals for lean product teams
Rituals should predispose respect and collaboration
across disciplines, reduce defensiveness and debate, and
ensure successive improvements to the product.
ABSTRACT CONCEPTS
First frame the question (define the problem)
User need/quote as sprint name
Write tests first
ideate
Standup
Wireframe check
Pairing
communicate
Acceptance discipline
Retrospective
respect
User talks and tests
Redo improve
Housecleaning
Most important thing for the
problem owner is to define WORKING SOFTWARE
and own the problem.
LEAN UX INTENSIVE, NOV 2010 JANICE@LUXR.CO