One of the biggest challenges of designing user experiences in an agile world is fitting into agile processes. Join Dean Barker, VP of UX and Agile coaching at Optum/UnitedHealth Group, as he discusses how to remove the waste from your UX processes for a truly lean foundation.

1. The Agile UX Equation:
Constructing a Powerful, but
Lightweight Process
Dean T. Barker

2. Quick Housekeeping
1
• Control panel on the side of your screen if you
have any comments during the presentation
• Time at the end for Q&A
• Today’s webinar will be recorded for future
viewing
• All attendees will receive a copy of the
slides/recording
• Continue the discussion using #uzwebinar

3. Agenda
● The Agile context
● How do you make Agile work for UX?
● How do you make UX work for Agile?
● Putting it all together Dean Barker
Vice President
Optum
deanzilla@me.com
www.linkedin.com/in/deanbarker

4. What is Agile?
1
A philosophical movement in software development
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

5. What is Agile?
1
Software development methods based on Agile ethos
Scrum, Extreme Programming, Kanban
SAFe, LeSS, DAD, Nexus, Maxos
Test Driven Development, Agile Modeling, DevOps

6. Scrum: An Agile development method
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Three Roles (Product Owner, ScrumMaster, Team)
Four Ceremonies (Sprint planning, Daily scrum, Sprint review, Retro)
Three artifacts (Product backlog, Sprint backlog, Product increment)

7. Scrum: An Agile development method
1

8. What is Lean?
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A manufacturing philosophy (Lean Thinking 1996)
Specify the value desired by the customer
Identify the value stream and challenge waste
Make the product flow continuously through the value-added steps
Introduce pull between all steps where possible
Manage toward perfection

9. Why Agile and UX?
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Agile UX
Now
!

10. It’s an Agile world
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74% in 2013
35% in 2010
20% in 2008

11. It’s an experience economy
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Forrester Report October 2010 How To Prepare For The Era Of Experience

12. Compatibility?
1
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Symbols-Venus-Mars-joined-together.png
• Emergent/intentional
• Time boxed/organic work
• Code/deliverables
• Programmer/designer

13. Two problems…
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1. How do you make Agile work for UX?
2. How do you make UX work for Agile?

14. How do you make Agile work for UX?
1
http://coachingagile.blogspot.com/2010/05/when-do-we-start-when-should-we-finish.html

15. How do you make Agile work for UX?
1

16. How do you make Agile work for UX?
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1. Before development
2. During development cycles
3. Parallel to development cycles

17. Before development
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Design Runway

18. During development cycles
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JIT Design JIT Design JIT Design JIT Design

19. Parallel to development cycles
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Design Runway

20. How do you make Agile work for UX?
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Design Runway
Design Runway
JIT Design JIT Design JIT Design JIT Design

21. How do you make UX work for Agile?
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The UX Book
Rex Hartson and Pardha Pyla

22. How do you make UX work for Agile?
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The Usability
Engineering
Lifecycle
Deborah Mayhew

23. How do you make UX work for Agile?
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1. Lean methods
2. Time boxed activities
3. Lightweight deliverables

24. Lean methods
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1. Upfront User Research (qualitative and/or quantitative)
2. User Definition (e.g. User Profiles, Personas, etc.)
3. Task Models (e.g. Task Analysis, Workflows, Journey Maps, etc.)
4. High Level Design (e.g. site map)
5. Detailed Design (e.g. sketches, wireframes, prototypes, etc.)
6. Design Standards (e.g. styleguides, patterns, etc.)
7. Iteration via User Feedback or Inspection (e.g. usability testing)

25. Lean methods
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Lean Standard
5 days 2 weeks
32-36 hours 80 hours
1 evaluator 4 evaluators
• Four evaluators are capable of identifying the Top
10 usability issues (75% of the Top 20)**
• Typically finds 30-50% of issues found in Usability
test
Findings/Recommendations Report ● ●
Methodology ● ●
Executive Summary ●
Summary of Issues: By Severity ●
Summary of Issues: By Location ●
Summary: High Priority Issues ●
Detailed Issues ● ●
Quality Scorecard ●
Findings/Recommendations Tracking Spreadsheet ●
Present Report ● ●
** “How Effective are Heuristic Evaluations?”, Jeff Sauro (MeasuringU), Sept. 6, 2012.

26. Time boxed activities
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The Usability
Engineering
Lifecycle
Deborah Mayhew
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management_triangl
e

27. “Work expands so as to
fill the time available for
its completion”
Parkinson’s Law

28. Lightweight deliverables
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http://agilemodeling.com/artifacts/uiFlowDiagram.htm

29. “The true choice is not between discount and deluxe
usability engineering. If that were the choice, I would
agree that the deluxe approach would bring better
results. The true choice, however, is between doing
something and doing nothing. Perfection is not an
option. My choice is to do something!”
Jakob Nielsen
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/web-discount-usability/

30. “Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.”
Voltaire
The best is the enemy of the good.

31. Two problems…three solutions for each
1
1. How do you make Agile work for UX?
• Before development
• During development cycles
• Parallel to development cycles
1. How do you make UX work for Agile?
• Lean methods
• Time boxed activities
• Lightweight deliverables

32. Putting it all together
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Sprint 0:
Field study
Persona
Feature 1 Task Analysis
Whiteboard Nav Model
Emergent styleguide and patterns
Summative Usability Testing and metrics
Refine usability backlog
Design ahead for next release
Wireframes
from Patterns
Wireframes
from Patterns
Guerilla
Usability Test
Iterate
Wireframes

33. Just enough, Just in time.

34. Q&A

35. UPCOMING WEBINAR
Save the date for a follow
up webinar on
June 22nd @
10am Pacific
ALL ATTENDEES WILL
RECEIVE A FOLLOW UP
LINK TO REGISTER
The Agile UX Equation: How to Implement
UserZoom Within Your Agile Framework
Join Sarah Tannehill, Product Manager (Former Director of UX
Research) at UserZoom as she presents:
● How to effectively scope and plan for a project to fit into
agile timelines
● Use cases of how you can leverage UserZoom within an
agile development cycle
● A walkthrough of how you can quickly create a task-
based study in the UserZoom platform

36. Thank You for Joining Us!
UserZoom | marketing@userzoom.com
Dean Barker | deanzilla@me.com
www.linkedin.com/in/deanbarker