Intro to Agile and Lean UX

transcript

INTRODUCTION TO AGILE &

LEAN USER EXPERIENCE WORKSHOP

WILL EVANS

Managing Director

TLC Labs

Design !inker-in-Residence NYU Stern Graduate School of Management

@semanticwill

JACKLYN BURGAN

Interaction Designer

Turner Broadcasting

Chief Awesomeologist

Glitter Queen

@playfulpixel

True Fact

!e vast majority of projects fail NOT because they couldn’t build a great product using the latest

new technology.

!ey failed because they built something no one wanted.

Let’s start with an exercise!

Which is timeboxed 2min

•  All too o"en, leaders, managers, teams, designers rely on common approaches that may work well in one context, and fail in another.

•  Teams want to create better customer experiences (user experiences), but aren’t sure what that really means.

•  Teams o"en #nd it di$cult moving from insights to action (based on this research, what should we do now?).

Why Are We Here?

Might as well give you the take-aways…

•  Context matters – e%ective teams are adept at knowing which context (domain) they are in

•  Di%erent contexts (ontologies) require di%erent ways of knowing (epistemologies).

•  Sense-Making as a collaborative meaning-making activity for framing problems & generating options.

•  !e Customer Experience is “owned” by everyone, not just a single role.

If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing.

- W. Edwards Deming

Lean* UX?

By Lean*UX most people really mean

“UX Design in the context of the Lean Startup Method”

Term coined by Janice Fraser, Founder of LUXR

We’ve heard the “UX Design” is important, and the customer

experience is important, but…

WTF is UXD?

•  Articulated context •  Centered on customer’s needs, goals, desires •  Clear hierarchy of information and tasks •  Focus on simplicity; reduce visual complexity •  Provide strong information scent •  Use constraints appropriately •  Make actions reversible •  Provide meaningful feedback •  Aesthetics matter

Principles of UX

Traditional Process

“Traditional” UX Practices

•  Emphasize deliverables •  See the work as a solution that gets sold to

stakeholders •  See the (UX) designer as the hero in charge of

#nding solutions to design challenges and getting approval before development starts

Over the past 35 years, UX* (CX, IxD/IA/UCD), much like Waterfall, accumulated a lot of wasteful, time-

consuming, CYA practices that delivered no discernable value to the

business or to customers.

*CX is a new term popularized by Forrester Research

Over the past 12 years, so has Agile.

“Waste is any human activity which absorbs resources, but creates no value.”

- James P Womak and Daniel T. Jones, Lean !inking

Why Agile or Lean?

•  Companies innovates in a context of uncertainty. !ere’s insu$cient evidence to con#dently answer questions like will people want this kind of product? Will people buy it? What should it look like? What features should it have?

•  Because of the uncertainty, progress is measured by what we learn through experiments. Product success is found through repeated cycles of “build-measure-learn”

•  Work is organized into the smallest possible batch size and launched quickly -> Agile

(Lean UX) Process

•  Figure out who it’s for? •  Interviews, personas, design target •  What can the user do that wasn’t possible

before? •  Activity map, concept drawings, storyboards •  What features does the user need for that? •  Stickys, sketches, whiteboarding •  Sketch it, (prototype it), then build it •  “Fake it, then make it”

Shared Goals

Agile development and Lean UX share a few goals: •  Shorten the time to market •  Working so"ware over comprehensive

documentation •  Collaboration over negotiation •  Responding to change over following a plan

How Can We Improve Our Process?

•  !e design work we do is o"en limited to on-the-go type of decisions

•  We struggle with approvals •  We don’t have an established process that

involves UXD, thus our scenario is not “going from traditional UX to Lean”, but rather, “establishing our approach to UXD”

Problem vs. Solution

“Focus on the problem. If you’re only excited about the solution, you’ll lose interest when your solution

doesn’t !x the problem.” - Adil Wali, CTO of ModCloth

Business, UXD, and Development should all focus

on the Customer, Problem, and Solution.

Integrating Design into Development Process

!e “Traditional” Way (Waterfall + Waterfall or Waterfall + Agile)

1.  Have a great idea 2.  Wireframe 3.  Designer creates a static

mockup 4.  Static mockup & specs are

thrown to devs to implement, QA to test

!e Collaborative Way (Lean UX + Agile Development)

1.  Have a great idea 2.  Sketch together 3.  Engage team (BA, UX, Dev,

QA) to build a prototype 4.  Play, tweak, rinse, repeat 5.  Once UX is nailed have a

visual designer polish to perfection

“A Startup is a human institution

designed to deliver a product or service

under conditions of extreme uncertainty”

– Eric Ries

WHAT IS LEAN STARTUP?

7 Steps

Uncover your customers’ pain points through research

Hypotheses, NOT Requirements

Question your assumptions

Collaborate to generate ideas

Embrace experiments

Learning isn’t failure

Amplify what works

Minimize TOTAL time through the loop

!e Customer Development Process

Lean UX Cycle

4 Key Elements to Lean UX

We have this problem, lets jump in and brainstorm a solution We have a new technology, what can we possibly use it for? Our competitors just launched X; how quickly can we also do X? •  Empathy through research •  Framing the problem •  Generative Ideation •  Prototyping & validation

BASICS OF CUSTOMER RESEARCH

Background

Malkovich Bias

"e tendency to believe that everyone uses technology

the same way you do. - Andres Glusman

Customer Research

Customer Research How much research?

People

Insights

A Research Heuristic

UX Mantra

Mantra: You are not the customer.

Only through research can we

uncover people’s pains, needs, and goals, in their context.

Henry Ford never said, “If I’d asked customers what they wanted,

they would have said, “a faster horse.”

It’s a lie. A myth. An urban legend.

Types of Research

INTERVIEWING EXERCISE

Stand Up!

A – B - C

Speaker Interviewer Observer

Speakers

Close your eyes

Interviewers

Chat with speaker about their commute to work

Observers

Watch what happens. Write observations on

post-it notes.

Interviewers

Don’t take notes.

2 minutes

Re&ection

Speakers

Close your eyes

Interviewers

Chat with the speaker about their car maintenance costs

Interviewers

One more thing.

Interviewers

A"er the #rst question – you cannot speak again.

Shhh…

Observers

Watch what happens. Write observations on

post-it notes.

Interviewers

Don’t take notes.

2 minutes

Re&ection

“"e opposite of talking isn’t listening. "e opposite of

talking is waiting.” - Fran Lebowitz

Speakers

Close your eyes

Interviewers

Chat with the speaker about parking in midtown Atlanta

Interviewers

A"er the #rst question, you can only ask:

“Can you tell me more about X?”

Observers

Watch what happens. Write observations on post-it

notes.

Interviewers

Do note take notes.

4 minutes

Re#ection

More Tips

•  Silence •  Re&ect back (What I think you said was…)

•  Remember to have empathy •  Ask open questions •  Ask for stories •  No leading questions •  Observations vs. Insights

CUSTOMER EMPATHY MAP

Timeboxed 10 minutes

Empathy Map Process

• Treat your table as a team • Draw an empathy map • Based on insights from your interviewing

exercise, project yourself into the mind of a professional wanting more control over their schedule, including more time with their family

Empathy Map Process

• What does she !ink or Feel? (What matters?) • What does she See? (environment, friends,

solutions in the market) • What does she Say and Do? (appearance, activities,

behaviors) • What does she Hear? (What do friends, boss,

colleagues say?) • Pain (fears, frustrations, obstacles) • Goals (wants, needs, desires)

Empathy Map Process

• Write at least 2 insights per section silently • 5 Minutes

• Discuss with your team • 5 Minutes

•  Vote on top 2 per section • Teams Present

You have 10 minutes!

!ose were all assumptions…

ETHNOGRAGHY

Ethnography Allows Us To

1. Discover the semantics of living

2. Decode signi#ers of cultural practice

3. Understand the language people use.

!e Power of Pairing

Keys To Good Ethnography

Delve deeply into the context, lives, cultures, and rituals of a few people rather than study a large number of people super#cially.

!is isn’t about booty calls, this is about relationships.

Holistically study people’s behaviors and experiences in daily life. You won’t #nd this in a lab, focus group, or 5 minute interview on

the street.

Learn to ask probing, open questions, gathering as much data as possible to inform your understanding.

Practice “active seeing,” and “active listening.” Record every minutiae of daily existence, and encode on post-its.

Use digital tools for asynchronous data collection: Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Flickr.

Use collaborative sense-making activities like cyne#n and a$nity diagramming to understand and formulate a narrative of

experience.

Map the stories and insights back to the original customer hypothesis and problem hypothesis.

Did it validate or invalidate your hypotheses?

Before Interviews

•  Identify who you are interviewing •  Articulate customer hypotheses •  Cra" a topic map for your interviews •  Write down your prompts

9 Keys to Customer Research

1.  One interview at a time 2.  Always pair interview (if you can) 3.  Introduce yourself 4.  Record the conversation 5.  Ask general, open-ended questions to get

people talking 6.  As questions around the problem “Do you

ever experience a problem like X” 7.  !en ask, “Tell me about the last time…” 8.  Listen more than you talk 9.  Separate behavior from narrative

Guidelines

1.  It’s about empathizing 2.  Listen, even when people go o% topic 3.  Context is king – document it, and make

sure the context of research maps to the problem being explored

4.  Start from the assumption that everything you know is wrong

You need to gather:

1.  Factual information 2.  Behavior 3.  Pain 4.  Goals

You can document this on the persona board as well as ….

Photos, video, audio, journals…. Document

everything

A simple 3-Point Interview

•  Has [insert speci#c problem] been a problem for you? (context) • Tell me about the last time you dealt with this problem? (story) •  What’s your ideal solution for this problem? (solution)

Open Ended Questions Start With…

•  Tell me about… •  How so… •  What are your thoughts on… •  Could you elaborate on… •  Give some examples of •  Tell me about the last time you…

During the interview

DO •  Take notes •  Smile •  Ask open-ended questions •  Get their story •  Shut up and listen

DON’T •  Talk about your product •  Ask about future behavior •  Sell •  Ask leading questions •  Talk much

PERSONAS

Lean Personas

•  Personas are an archetype of your actual, validated customers based on research.

•  Personas are not a sheet of paper, they are a living document.

•  (Just) making up personas is useless. •  BUT – creating persona hypotheses

gets the ball moving… to do research.

Lean Personas

“Personas are to persona descriptions as vacations are

to photo albums” - Jared Spool

Your person requires….

1.  Factual information 2.  Behavior 3.  Pain 4.  Goals

You can document this on the persona board as well as ….

Photos, video, audio, journals…. Document

everything

We have this problem, lets jump in and brainstorm a solution We have a new technology, what can we possibly use it for? Our competitors just launched X; how quickly can we also do X? •  Empathy through research •  Framing Problem Spaces •  Generative Ideation •  Prototyping & validation

4 Key Elements to Lean UX

FRAMING AND SENSE MAKING How do we make sense of the world so that we can act in it?

Lean Startup Berrypicking Model

Problem Statement

Sophia “I schedule my entire life around tra$c patterns.” - Sophia

Sophia works in a large company as a UX Designer. She spends a lot of time with users—testing features, determining what their needs are, looking at how they interact with technology, etc. She then takes that insight back to the product managers to inform future product decisions.

She has been working for about 5 years in this role and just got promoted to manager. Unfortunately, her personal life is starting to su%er because she spends extra time in the o$ce and then spends an hour every day sitting in tra$c. When she gets home, she doesn’t have the time or energy to put into her friendships.

§  Components §  Characteristics §  Challenges §  Characters

4C Exploration

Components

Components are parts of the problem or topic. For example, a component for Sophia may be her smart phone bill.

Characteristics

Characteristics are features or attributes of the topic. For e x a m p l e , a characteristic of Sophia’s #nancial goals may be “risk tolerant”.

Challenges are obstacles associated with the topic. For example, !ursday evening girls night out might be a challenge.

Challenges

Characters are people associated with the topic. Friends, boss, colleagues, parents – anyone who may in&uence her #nancial habits.

Characters

Which is timeboxed

§  Components §  Characteristics §  Challenges §  Characters

4C Exploration

From Sense-Making to Abduction

We have this problem, lets jump in and brainstorm a solution We have a new technology, what can we possibly use it for? Our competitors just launched X; how quickly can we also do X? •  Empathy through research •  Framing the problem •  Generative Ideation •  Prototyping & validation

GENERATIVE IDEATION

An Exercise!

Which is timeboxed 2min

You have 2 minutes

Ideation Process

Create. Pitch. Critique. TECHNICALLY THIS IS CALLED A CHARRETTE*.

It’s about generating many safe-to-fail experiments, not highly rendered

solutions.

All ideas must map to Sophia’s goals & needs.

Generate lots of design concepts (options*) Present concepts as stories

Critique using Ritual Dissent Integrate (steal) & Iterate

Check stories for coherence Converge around testable solution hypotheses

Design Studio

*See Chris Matts Real Options !eory

Create. Pitch. Critique. TECHNICALLY THIS IS CALLED A CHARRETTE*.

Level playing #eld. Idea generation.

Team buy-in. Ownership/investment.

Vet design concepts.

Create. Pitch. Critique.

Create six to eight concept sketches individually.

Line, Square, Circle, Triangle

Focus on the bare minimum to convey your concept

All ideas must map to person’s goals & needs.

!ree minutes to pitch how your concept solves the problem.

Two minutes for critique.

Two to three ways it solves the problem and one to two

opportunities for improvement.

Sophia “I schedule my entire life around tra$c patterns.” - Sophia

Sophia works in a large company as a UX Designer. She spends a lot of time with users—testing features, determining what their needs are, looking at how they interact with technology, etc. She then takes that insight back to the product managers to inform future product decisions.

She has been working for about 5 years in this role and just got promoted to manager. Unfortunately, her personal life is starting to su%er because she spends extra time in the o$ce and then spends an hour every day sitting in tra$c. When she gets home, she doesn’t have the time or energy to put into her friendships.

Sketching

5 minutes

Pitching (pick a timer)

3 minutes

Critique 2 x 2

2 minutes

2nd Iteration

5 minutes

Storyboarding!

5 minutes

Pitching

2 minutes

Critique 2 x 2

2 minutes

3nd Iteration

10 minutes

Sketching – 1 Interface/Solution

10 minutes

“Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than

the one where they sprang up.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Pitching

3 minutes

Critique 2 x 2

2 minutes

Team Sketch

1 Concept 25 minutes

Ritual Dissent

“Whenever we propose a solution to a problem, we ought to try as hard as we can to overthrow our solution, rather than defend it.”

- Karl Popper

Present

Pick a spokesperson 5 minutes to prepare

Ritual Dissent •  !e basic approach involves a spokesperson presenting a series

of ideas to a group of investors who listens to them in silence.

•  You’re spokesperson will only have 5 minutes to present

•  Team must imagine they are a group of investors hearing a pitch from a startup.

•  No questions can be asked of the spokesperson.

•  Investor team must #nd all the things wrong with the concept, why it solves no problem, and all the other solutions in the marketplace that do things better.

Ritual Dissent

• !e spokesperson turns to face the wall, so that their back is to the investor team and listens in silence while the group attacks the idea.

• !e spokesperson cannot respond to questions or defend the ideas.

•  Investor team must be as harsh as possible. •  Spokesperson can only take notes on everything

he/she hears.

“"e opposite of talking isn’t listening. "e opposite of

talking is waiting.” - Fran Lebowitz

For all critique decide:

•  Ignore (backburner) •  Remove (de-solve) •  Research Solution (best practice) •  Research Problem (innovate)

Comment Ignore Remove

Active Decision Making Model

Research Solution

Research Problem

Iterate as a team based on the critique.

!en pitch to the whole workshop.

But #rst…

Rip up your designs.

Team Sketch

Use ADM & Sketch 15 minutes

Team Present

3 Minutes

Ritual Assent

2 Minutes

•  Tips

•  Timebox: 5 minutes sketch / 5 minutes per person •  No more than 6 or 7 people per table (4 is best) •  Don’t introduce too many business rules up front •  Imagine no technology constraints •  Make explicit all potential channels (not just mobile

or web)* •  Move people from team to team to prevent

premature convergence •  Don’t serve Turkey sandwiches

Potential Pitfalls

•  Having a solution before Design Studio starts – “we already have a solution – we just want buy-in”

•  Not adequately scoping design studio to match the problem – “we can only spend 2 hours on design studio because of people’s schedules”

•  Introducing blockers or business constraints too early •  !e invisible hand of the absent stakeholder

Process & Pitfalls: http://bit.ly/vpeuJn

Articles to learn more on UXMag

Introduction to Design Studio

!e Design of Design Studio

Design Studio in AgileUX: Process and Pitfalls

PROTOTYPE & VALIDATE

Minimize TOTAL time through the loop

Prototyping and Testing

Why prototype?

•  Explore • Quickly create testable solution options • Identi#es problems before they’re coded • Re&ection-in-action*

•  Experiment • Early frequent feedback from customers • Low opportunity cost

•  Evolve understanding of customer behaviors

* !eory in Practice, Chris Argyris & Donald Schön

What Fidelity?

•  Low #delity • Paper

•  Medium #delity • Axure • Omnigra'e • Indigo Studio • Clickable Wireframes

•  High Fidelity • Twitter Bootstrap • jQueryUI • Zurb Foundation

Beware of “endowment e$ect,” also called the divestiture aversion. Once people invest time/e$ort “sketching with code,” its very di%cult to throw the concept away and explore new options.” Identify what you want to learn, pick the least e$ort to go through Build > Measure > Learn

From insights, you can create multiple problem & solution hypotheses sets.

It's not about designing the one right solution and re#ning.

It's about testing many solutions to multiple problem hypotheses.

It's about many small bets.

Maximize Optionality

Some Ideas for Good Product Design

•  Balanced team Design + PM + Development = One team

•  Externalize thought process •  Flow: !ink > Make > Check •  Research to understand Problem Space •  No proxies between customers and team •  Collaborative Sense-making •  Generative Ideation: It’s about optionality •  Formulate many small tests & measure outcome

Reading Recommendations

WILL EVANS

Director of Design & Research

TLC Labs

Design !inker-in-Residence

NYU Stern Graduate School of

Management

@semanticwill

JACKLYN BURGAN

Interaction Designer

Turner Broadcasting

Chief Awesomeologist

Dancing Queen

@playfulpixel

THANKS!

Intro to Agile and Lean UX

Technology