2. Who is this guy? With a hat like that, he must know his shit. Jeff Gothelf Currently: Director of UX at TheLadders.com Previously: Publicis Modem, Webtrends, AOL, Fidelity and an assortment of startups Blog: www.jeffgothelf.com/blog Twitter: @jboogie Email: jgothelf@theladders.com
3. Job site for professionals earning $100k or more and the recruiters/employers looking to hire them.
4. Execution team made up of product managers, developers and user experience folks.
5. UX team made up of Interaction Designers, Visual Designers and Copywriters. Work spans both pre-paywall acquisition and conversion marketing as well as post-paywall product design.
22. But The Precious was out there….we were sure of ithttp://quizilla.teennick.com/user_images/T/tohrupenguin/1112394240_ryfrodosam.jpg
23. So we set out on a quest to find the unicorn! And this was no ordinary unicorn. Preliminary research made it clear that no one had really nailed this problem. http://www.boingboing.net/gimages/patrick.jpg
28. How do you keep the engineering teams busy each iteration?
29. Will lighter product iterations be accepted by the business?
30. Will we be blamed if they don’t?http://www.africandreamadventuresafaris.com/thornbush-arusha-national-park.JPG
31. The journey of 1000 miles starts with one step. Our first step was research. Agile and user experience http://www.africandreamadventuresafaris.com/thornbush-arusha-national-park.JPG
33. We even sought out The Oracle… He was very oracle-ish. http://www.xqa.com.ar/visualmanagement/wp-content/uploads/XQA_9437.JPG
34. Add up all the research to get…..ideas! An idea and $.75 and you’re on your way to that cup of coffee. http://legacy.lclark.edu/faculty/jsmiller/objects/idea_bulb.jpg
36. We took our 9-month waterfall process… Which was mighty and massive http://www.julia-mathewson.com/photos/usa_2005_photos/8niagara1.jpg
37. And jammed it into a 2-week timeframe. We kept all the pieces and processes the same. http://www6.worldisround.com/photos/29/323/524_o.jpg
38. We became chairmen of the boards. It got a little silly, actually. “The whiteboards do not help organize the UX team’s work at all. Instead, they block out natural light from the windows and create a harsh and uncreative visual environment.” - Internal survey respondent
39. Functional specs were now banned. The story card had taken the spec’s place. And it multiplied.
40. The boards took on multiple purposes. Functional spec. Project plan. Resource allocation. And status indication.
41. The boards took on multiple purposes. Functional spec. Project plan. Resource allocation. And status indication.
42. But, hey, the UX team got its own board. Which is nice.
43. Wireframes picked up the heavy lifting specs had left behind. Annotations galore!
44. Dreams of a “vision” document never materialized. You can dream in one hand and poop in the other. See which one fills first.
45.
46. Learnings from our first attempt: UX morale in the crapper Feeling of “going for the bronze” Perceived quality of work was much lower No time to design No ownership or pride in the work Summary: FAIL
59. Learnings from our second attempt: Style guides make life easier Re-usable components FTW! “Everyone is a designer” buys more UX time Prototyping reduces the need for most documentation Summary: We’re making progress
73. Decision at second review is made to move forward or spend another iteration designinghttp://www.flickr.com/photos/janekeeler/4677093058/sizes/l/
74. Great, the customer likes it. What about the product owner? Opinions are like belly buttons. Belly buttons on cats. “Design reviews have made the biggest difference. Having all the decision makers in one room has been crucial to getting projects approved on time.” - Internal survey respondent “Design reviews have helped reduce the “endless email thread” reviews we used to have.” - Another internal survey respondent http://www.flickr.com/photos/janekeeler/4677093058/sizes/l/
75. Learnings from our third attempt: In-sprint user testing provides continuous user feedback in advance of coding Lightweight and cost-effective testing Formal, fixed design reviews provide mileposts for everyone to strive toward Unified approval processes buy more UX time Summary: Win!
90. UX UX UX UX Biz Line Biz Line Biz Line Biz Line
91. Learnings from our fourth attempt: Collaboration works Anyone can contribute ideas Focusing teams on one workstream proves effective Camaraderie, communication benefit from aligned teams Summary: Win! (that’s two, but I’m not counting)
92. Where we are today: We’re changing our mind. Slowly.
93. Designers love ritual. Trying to pull them out of established ruts is a Herculean task. http://www.strongcopssavelives.com/images/Air%20Plane%20Pull%202009.jpg
94. Designers are used to being heroes. Agile is distinctly, anti-hero. http://www.abegoodman.com/Images/greatest-american-hero.jpg
95. What about estimates? Deadlines or points? http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_FfetiF7C9vo/SEeOU0ew8KI/AAAAAAAAILU/CE_tq46wDYM/S600/Washington+DC+auto+mechanic,+1942.JPG
96. Is it viable? Yes, but does anybody actually want it? Minimally viable Minimally desirable
97. Evolution continues through the breaking of old norms. Moving towards parallel pathing development and design. http://www.greatoutdoors.com/files/imagecache/display/files/images/articles/Wong%20leading%20a%20Powder%208%20win%20%20photo%20-%20Wong%20Collection.jpg
98. Thanks! Ask me some questions. Here. Now. Or later: jgothelf@theladders.com / @jboogie
Notas del editor
Using the style guide leveled the playing field between visual design and interaction design. Now everyone on the team could put together a production-ready prototype of most features on the site. This freed up time and allowed folks to get more work done in the two week timeframe. But the quality of the designs and the thinking behind them started to drop…….putting puzzles together is not quite the same thing as design.
Prototyping allows us to show the rest of the team what the final app should look like and how it should behave before code is committed and without writing specs – essentially these took the place of our specs. Initially our prototypes were as functional as the one in the picture (delicious but not functional)…..
By showing the team the protoype in a meeting, together we surfaced the requirements and the issues with the current approach. Initial goal was to cut out specs. Next goal is to deliver functional code so we’re not throwing away valuable hours……