The experience your customers have with your products is a critical component of success. Valuable products can solve real human needs, fulfill desires, and improve the quality the of life. This goes beyond just building more features, or making things look pretty. It involves understanding and empathizing with your customers, and involving them in the design process. How do we do this? And how do we do this in a way that fits into the operational rhythms of Agile development? These perspectives are shared by a long-time UX designer who has recently moved into Agile.

1. UX & AGILE
LEARNING TO GET ALONG
Justin Ludington
03.22.2016
Mid-Michigan Agile Group

2. UX & AGILE
AGENDA
▸ A Brief History, Then & Now
▸ UX Within Agile
▸ Lean Principles
▸ Design Thinking & Innovation

3. UX & AGILE
WHO AM I?
Justin Ludington

4. UX UI!
FIRST, LET’S GET THIS OUT OF THE WAY

7. WATERFALL
THE OLD WAY

8. FIRST
CUSTOMER
SHIP

9. A BETTER WAY
USERS
Project Start
Concept
Design
Detailed
Design
Product
Launch
User
Requirements
User Validation
User Testing
USER CENTERED DESIGN

10. HOW DO WE MAKE IT?WHAT SHOULD WE MAKE?
VISION ACTION

11. HOW DO WE MAKE IT?WHAT SHOULD WE MAKE?

12. LEAN UX IS A WAY TO VALIDATE THAT YOU ARE
BUILDING THE RIGHT THING AND AGILE UX IS A WAY TO
BUILD THINGS THE RIGHT WAY

13. AGILE
BUILDING THE RIGHT WAY
SYNTHESIZE & REFINE
QA/TESTCONSULT

14. AGILE TEAMS ARE MORE PROFICIENT IN EXECUTING THE
DEVELOPMENT PROCESS, BUT THE COMPRESSED TIMESCALE
FORCES SOME TO ABANDON USER RESEARCH AND DEGRADE
THE RESULTING USER EXPERIENCE.
Nielsen Norman Group
AGILE UX

15. AGILE UX
PEOPLE
WORKING SOFTWARE
CUSTOMER COLLABORATION
RESPONDING TO CHANGE
OVER
OVER
OVER
OVER
process
comprehensive documentation
contract negotiation
following a plan
4 PRINCIPLES

16. ‣ Detailed Design for Sprint 3-4
‣ Gather Inputs for Feature B
‣ Detailed Design for Sprint 1-2 ‣ Detailed Design for Sprint 5-6
‣ Concepts for Feature B
‣ QA Sprint 1
‣ Foundation (Arch., APIs,)
‣ UI Structure (Frameworks,
Layouts, etc.)
‣ Implement Designs from
Sprint 1
‣ Implement Designs from
Sprint 2

17. AGILE UX
12 BEST PRACTICES
UX is part of the customer or product team
Research, model, and design up front - but
only just enough
Chunk your design work
Work ahead, and follow behind
Buy design time with complex engineering
stories
Cultivate a user validation group for use for
continuous user validation
http://www.agileproductdesign.com/blog/emerging_best_agile_ux_practice.html
Schedule continuous user research in a
separate track from development
Leverage user time for multiple activities
Use RITE to iterate UI before
development
Prototype in low fidelity
Treat prototype as specification
Become a design facilitator
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

19. LEAN UX
MAKING THE RIGHT THING
IDEATE/BRAINSTORM
HYPOTHESIZE
& EXPERIMENT
REVIEW FINDINGS &
PERFORMANCE
REPORT
OPPORTUNITY
A
B
C
D
E
F

20. LEAN UX
WHAT IS LEAN?
‣ Eliminate waste
‣ Amplify learning
‣ Decide as late as possible
‣ Deliver as fast as possible
‣ Empower the team
‣ Build integrity in
‣ See the whole

21. THINK BIG. ACT SMALL.
FAIL FAST. LEARN RAPIDLY.
Mary Poppendieck, Tom Poppendieck
Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit
LEAN UX

23. Aim to do just enough work to prove or
disprove a hypothesis about the
product quickly
INTRODUCING LEAN UX
LEAN UX

24. LEAN UX
THE PROCESS
Jeff Goethelf, Lean UX

25. LEAN UX
SOLVE THE PROBLEM TOGETHER
▸ Get a shared consensus
▸ We all have an idea of what
the solution can be, but we
approach it from different
perspectives
▸ Align on the vision early

26. LEAN UX
SKETCH
▸ Visualize thinking
▸ You do not have to be able to
draw well, just get the idea out
of your head

27. LEAN UX
PROTOTYPE
▸ Turn the vision into
something tangible
▸ May be paper, low-fi
wireframes, or clickable,
interactive prototypes

28. LEAN UX
PAIR
▸ Refine design take advantage of
existing frameworks and patterns
▸ Minimize documentation by
working together
▸ Regroup often & share progress
▸ Frees the designer, empowers the
developer

29. LEAN UX
DOCUMENT
▸ Abstract your designs out into
modular components
▸ Only at the end, and as little as
necessary
▸ Create a living style guide of
reusable code

30. LEAN UX
GOOD FOR… NOT SO MUCH FOR…

31. DESIGN THINKING
WHAT DO WE MAKE

32. DESIGN THINKING
INNOVATION THROUGH HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN
EMPATHY
DEFINE
IDEATE
PROTOTYPE
TEST

33. DESIGN THINKING
UNDERSTANDING YOUR USERS
EMPATHY
You must understand who you’re solving and
designing for. Observe what people say and what
they do when they interact with their environment.
This gives clues about how they think and feel.

34. DESIGN THINKING
FRAME THE PROBLEM
Explicitly express the problem you are striving to
address. Its equally important to understand what
you’re not solving for. Focus on the greatest pain
point customers are experiencing and solve that.
DEFINE

35. DESIGN THINKING
DIVERGENT THINKING
Generate as many radical alternatives as possible.
Explore a wide solution space in large volume and
diversity. Don’t get hung up on what “can’t” be
done
IDEATE

36. DESIGN THINKING
MOVE FROM ABSTRACT TO CONCRETE
A prototype can be anything that takes a physical form
—post it, sketches, storyboards, or code. These are most
successful when people can interact with them. We
learn from those interactions. Those learnings drive
deeper customer empathy.
PROTOTYPE

37. DESIGN THINKING
SEE WHAT WORKS
Testing puts our ideas/solutions in the context of a
user’s life. It’s a chance to get feedback on our
hypothesis & refine those solutions by making them
better. More importantly, it gives us a chance to learn
about our users.
TEST

38. NOT JUST FOR DESIGNERS
Design Thinking is a multi-disciplinary way of working that enables all members
to collaborate in solving important customer problems.

39. DESIGN THINKING
TOOLKITS
▸ Design facilitation tools
▸ Uncover latent opportunities
▸ Prioritize & build consensus
▸ Problem-solving & fresh thinking

42. Dublin, 10 Types of Innovation: https://www.doblin.com/ten-types

43. Questions/Discussion
?

44. THANK YOU
@jludington
jludington@gmail.com
justinludington