*  NOT ACTUALLY A DOCTOR

OR: HOW

I LEARNED

TO STOP BEING

WASTEFUL AND LOVE LEAN UX

LEAN UX IS NOT Mysterious, complex, or even fundamentally new.

LEAN UX IS NOT Cut back, slimmed down, or half-assed UX involvement.

Just for these guys. LEAN UX IS NOT

User Experience Design combined with the principles of Lean Startup…

LEAN UX IS

“Lean UX is an important new way to think about what we do, and I think there is real meat on it.” –Jared Spool

…which were inspired by Lean manufacturing principles…

LEAN UX IS

“Lean UX is an important new way to think about what we do, and I think there is real meat on it.” –Jared Spool

…which were inspired by the Toyota Production System (TPS) that propelled Japanese auto manufacturers to the top of the industry.

LEAN UX IS

“Lean UX is an important new way to think about what we do, and I think there is real meat on it.” –Jared Spool

“If you can’t describe what you’re doing as process, you don’t know what you’re

doing.” -W. Edwards Deming  

A tactic to remove waste from the design process.

“We move away from heavily documented handoffs to a process that creates only the design artifacts we need to move the team’s learning forward.” –Gothelf & Seidon

LEAN UX IS

A bad use of something valuable that you have only a limited amount of.

WASTE : [weyst] noun  

E.G. A waste of time or money

“Any human activity which absorbs resources, but creates no value.”

WASTE :

-James P Womak and Daniel T. Jones, Lean Thinking

Influenced not only by Lean Startup, but Design Thinking and Agile development.

LEAN UX IS

At it’s core, a mindset.

“Lean UX is the practice of bringing the true nature of a product to light faster, in a collaborative, cross-functional way that reduces the emphasis on thorough documentation while increasing the focus on building a shared understanding of the actual product experience being designed.” –Gothelf & Seidon

LEAN UX IS

People are inherently poor at visualizing outcomes. PROBLEM : “The problem with much software development and UX Design is that you spend months doing research, writing requirements, designing wireframes and building software… and discover no customer or software user cares.” –Will Evans

Waterfall approaches are slow to unearth design problems.

“In [our] new reality, traditional ‘get it all figured out first’ approaches are not workable.” –Gothelf & Seidon

WHY LEAN UX?

Right or wrong, stakeholders want to be heard. Lean UX provides avenues to hear and test stakeholder requests.

WHY LEAN UX?

In a competitive marketplace, results matter. Product quality is paramount.

WHY LEAN UX?

“At this point in experience design’s evolution, satisfaction ought to be the norm, and delight ought to be the goal.” –Parrish Hanna

START  

IDEAL SOLUTION  

ANTICIPATED SOLUTION  

LEAN  

OLD APPROACH  

Place an emphasis on individuals and interactions over processes and tools…

COLLABORATE

“The needs of the many outweigh… the needs of the few… or the one.” –Spock & Kirk

…Teams should be cross-functional and collaborative, creating a “shared understanding”…

“[Lean methods] drive us to harmonize our ‘system’ of designers, developers, product managers, quality assurance engineers, marketers, and others in a transparent, cross-functional collaboration that brings nondesigners into our design process.” –Gothelf & Seidon

COLLABORATE

…an emphasis should be placed on stakeholder collaboration over contract negotiation.

“Collaboration… creates consensus behind decisions… It also lessens dependency on heavy documentation.” –Gothelf & Seidon

COLLABORATE

UUG

GH

H I

T H

URTS

!  

COLLABORATIVE IDEATION :

Diverging Ideas   Converging Ideas  

Design in small batches…

“This concept means creating only the design that is necessary to move the team forward and avoid a big ‘inventory’ of untested and unimplemented design ideas.” –Gothelf & Seidon

DESIGN SMALL

By using a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) you uncover insights with minimal effort.

“Each design is a proposed business solution—a hypothesis… The smallest thing you can build to test each hypothesis is your MVP.” –Gothelf & Seidon

DESIGN SMALL

MINIMUM VIABLE PROTOTYPE : Execute priority items first, with greatest depth.

Use design patterns, stubs or mocks for high-value low-time items. Track UX debt.

Content blocking for items of lower importance.

Externalize your work. Be willing to share unfinished and unpolished drafts.

“Externalizing means getting your work out of your head and out of your computer and into public view.” –Gothelf & Seidon

SHARE

Making over debating. As quickly as possible put your team’s design ideas into action.

“There is more value in creating the first version of an idea than spending half a day debating its merits in a conference room… you need to make something for people to respond to.” –Gothelf & Seidon

SHARE

Anything that doesn’t contribute to an outcome is waste…

“In Lean UX the ultimate goal is improved outcomes… anything that doesn’t contribute to that outcome is considered waste… the more waste the team can eliminate, the faster they can move.” –Gothelf & Seidon

REDUCE DELIVERABLES

…focus on outcomes, not outputs.

“A problem-focused team is one that has been assigned a business problem to solve, as opposed to a set of features to implement. This is the logical extension of the focus on outcomes.” –Gothelf & Seidon

REDUCE DELIVERABLES

“Any human activity which absorbs resources, but creates no value.”

REMEMBER, WASTE IS :

“With increased cross-functional collaboration, stakeholder conversation becomes less about what artifact is being created and more about which outcome is being achieved.” –Gothelf & Seidon

Continuous discovery—based on experimentation…

“Instead of relying on a hero designer to divine the best solution from a single point of view, we use rapid experimentation and measurement to learn… [by continuously] engaging the customer during the design and development process.” –Gothelf & Seidon

TEST ITERATIVELY

…Get out of the building.

“The realization that meeting-room debates about user needs won’t be settled conclusively within your office… research involves the entire team.” –Gothelf & Seidon

TEST ITERATIVELY

Permission to fail—as soon as possible.

“Permission to fail means that the team has a safe environment in which to experiment.” –Gothelf & Seidon

FAIL

Learning as you move forward is more important than scaling. Broad feature deployment creates intense risk and inhibits learning.

“Ensuring that an idea is right before scaling it out mitigates the risk inherent in broad feature deployment.” –Gothelf & Seidon

LEARN

Rockstars, Gurus, and Ninjas.

“Rockstars don’t share—neither their ideas nor the spotlight. Team cohesion breaks down when you add individuals with large egos.” –Gothelf & Seidon

ANTI-PATTERN

•  Exploratory Research •  Ideation •  Info/User Modeling •  Competitive

Evaluation

THINK

•  Prototype (Low/Mid/Hi) •  Content Design •  Visual Design •  Development

MAKE •  In-lab UX testing •  Online UX testing •  A/B Testing •  Analytics

CHECK

•  Exploratory Research •  Ideation •  Info/User Modeling •  Competitive

Evaluation

THINK

•  Prototype (Low/Mid/Hi) •  Content Design •  Visual Design •  Development

MAKE •  In-lab UX testing •  Online UX testing •  A/B Testing •  Analytics

CHECK

1. DECLARE ASSUMPTIONS As a group, state your assumptions…

“Going through an assumptions declaration exercise gets everyone’s ideas out on the whiteboard. It reveals the team’s divergence of opinions.” –Gothelf & Seidon

1. DECLARE ASSUMPTIONS … I believe my customers have a need to ______…

“Going through an assumptions declaration exercise gets everyone’s ideas out on the whiteboard. It reveals the team’s divergence of opinions.” –Gothelf & Seidon

1. DECLARE ASSUMPTIONS … The #1 value a customer wants is _______…

“Going through an assumptions declaration exercise gets everyone’s ideas out on the whiteboard. It reveals the team’s divergence of opinions.” –Gothelf & Seidon

1. DECLARE ASSUMPTIONS … These needs can be solved with _______.

“Going through an assumptions declaration exercise gets everyone’s ideas out on the whiteboard. It reveals the team’s divergence of opinions.” –Gothelf & Seidon

2. START HIGH-LEVEL PERSONAS Create proto-personas that will evolve over time.

“Proto-personas are our best guess as to who is using (or will use) our product and why… Then, as we learn from our ongoing research, we quickly find out how accurate our initial guesses are.” –Gothelf & Seidon

PROTO PERSONA :

3. PRIORITIZE ASSUMPTIONS Prioritize assumptions by risk. The higher the risk, the greater the need for early learning.

“Lean UX is an exercise in ruthless prioritization. Understanding that you can’t test every assumption, how do you decides which one to test first?... How bad would it be if we were wrong about this?” –Gothelf & Seidon

4. DERIVE TESTABLE HYPOTHESES Transform each assumption into a format that is easier to test: a hypothesis statement.

“Put together a list of outcomes you are trying to create, a definition of the personas you are trying to service, and a set of the features you believe might work in this situation.” –Gothelf & Seidon

4. DERIVE TESTABLE HYPOTHESES We believe that creating ______ for ______ will achieve ______. We’ll know it’s true when ______.

“Put together a list of outcomes you are trying to create, a definition of the personas you are trying to service, and a set of the features you believe might work in this situation.” –Gothelf & Seidon

5. BRAINSTORM FEATURES Come up with a list of potential solutions to address hypotheses.

“Too often, though, our design process starts when someone has a feature idea, and we end up working backward to try to justify the feature.” –Gothelf & Seidon

•  Exploratory Research •  Ideation •  Info/User Modeling •  Competitive

Evaluation

THINK

•  Prototype (Low/Mid/Hi) •  Content Design •  Visual Design •  Development

MAKE •  In-lab UX testing •  Online UX testing •  A/B Testing •  Analytics

CHECK

•  Exploratory Research •  Ideation •  Info/User Modeling •  Competitive

Evaluation

THINK

•  Prototype (Low/Mid/Hi) •  Content Design •  Visual Design •  Development

MAKE •  In-lab UX testing •  Online UX testing •  A/B Testing •  Analytics

CHECK

6. COLLABORATIVE DESIGN Create a shared understanding by working together in collaborative design.

“[Collaborative design] brings designers and non-designers together in co-creation.” –Gothelf & Seidon

6. COLLABORATIVE DESIGN …Including Design Studios…

“Collaboration yields better results than hero design…. The key is to collaborate with a diverse group of team members. Designing together increases the design IQ… [and] builds team-wide shared understanding.” –Gothelf & Seidon

6. COLLABORATIVE DESIGN … style guides and pattern libraries.

“Designing together increases the design IQ… [and] builds team-wide shared understanding… [Pattern libraries] create efficiency.” –Gothelf & Seidon

DESIGN STUDIO:

•  Exploratory Research •  Ideation •  Info/User Modeling •  Competitive

Evaluation

THINK

•  Prototype (Low/Mid/Hi) •  Content Design •  Visual Design •  Development

MAKE •  In-lab UX testing •  Online UX testing •  A/B Testing •  Analytics

CHECK

•  Exploratory Research •  Ideation •  Info/User Modeling •  Competitive

Evaluation

THINK

•  Prototype (Low/Mid/Hi) •  Content Design •  Visual Design •  Development

MAKE •  In-lab UX testing •  Online UX testing •  A/B Testing •  Analytics

CHECK

7. LEARN ITERATIVELY Conduct iterative user research…

“Too often, research activities take place only on rare occasions—either at the beginning of a project or at the end.” –Gothelf & Seidon

7. LEARN ITERATIVELY …in a rapid and light-weight manner (e.g. three users every Thursday)…

“Knowing you’re never more than a few days away from customer feedback has a powerful effect on teams. It takes the pressure away from your decision making.” –Gothelf & Seidon

7. LEARN ITERATIVELY …as a team, not relying solely on a researcher…

“Lean UX research is collaborative: you don’t rely on the work of specialized researchers to deliver learning to your team… use the researcher as a coach to help your team plan and execute your activities.” –Gothelf & Seidon

7. LEARN ITERATIVELY …by testing everything that’s available to be tested.

“Whatever is ready on testing day is what goes in front of the users.” –Gothelf & Seidon

8. SHARE LEARNINGS FREELY Proactively reach out to stakeholders with learnings and next steps.

HOW THE OLD APPROACH WORKS  

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK COLLABORATION  

HOW THE OLD APPROACH WORKS  

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK COLLABORATION  

WHAT LEAN UX LOOKS LIKE  

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK COLLABORATION  

WHAT LEAN UX LOOKS LIKE  

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK COLLABORATION  

WHAT LEAN UX LOOKS LIKE  

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK COLLABORATION  

SET EXPECTATIONS Set client or stakeholder expectations early, even before the pitch.

“Making Lean UX work requires the proper expectation setting up front. From the beginning of the engagement, even before the pitch, start setting the expectation with your client that this engagement will be different.” –Gothelf & Seidon

ELIMINATE ROADMAPS Roadmaps and lists of requirements dictate approach and solutions from the get-go, guaranteeing executions of false assumptions.

“Success criteria must be redefined and roadmaps must be done away with. In their place teams build backlogs of hypotheses.” –Gothelf & Seidon

FOCUS ON COMPETENCIES Adopt a mantra of “competencies over roles” including core competencies and secondary competencies.

“Too often, people in organizations discourage others from working outside the confines of their job description. This approach is deeply anticollaborative.” –Gothelf & Seidon

CO-LOCATE Create shared environments for project teams.

“Open workspaces allow team members to see each other and to easily reach out when questions arise... Augment these open spaces with breakout rooms where the teams can brainstorm.” –Gothelf & Seidon

NO HEROES Don’t hire heros. Discourage siloed solutioning.

“Glossy deliverables can drive bad corporate decisions. They can bias judgment specifically because their beauty is so persuasive.” –Gothelf & Seidon

NO MORE BDUF End the practice of big design up front, especially when big design happens as a part of a pitch.

“The needs of the many outweigh… the needs of the few… or the one.” –Spock & Kirk

Create hypotheses in every discipline. Eliminate the guesswork and emotion from decision making.

HYPOTHESIZE EVERYWHERE

“Knowing you’re never more than a few days away from customer feedback has a powerful effect on teams. It takes the pressure away from your decision making.” –Gothelf & Seidon

TRUEMPER

Questions? @trump29

 

h#p://linkedin.com/in/jaketruemper truemper@gmail.com