Erin Lynn Young

UX, Meet My Friend Product Strategy

Erin Lynn Young — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 18:26:18 +0000

In Giff Constable‘s presentation at Agile UX 2012 entitled The Missing Agile Principle, he suggested that although UX is hot right now, our discipline can only stay business’ golden child if it quickly zeroes in on results.

He challenges UX practioners to solve not only for the short-term product UI, but for the long-term product strategy. He calls UX to own answering the following questions:

What’s the need?
Who has the need?
How do we solve need?
How do we get customers?
How do we make money?
How do we beat competition?

I think that in some organizations, answering these questions might fall under the product manager’s jurisdiction — but specifying and carrying the vision out is a key to UX nonetheless.

Giff suggested that work doesn’t end when a product is shipped. Work should include validating for value after the fact. This is something that we hired guns must keep in mind as we structure client agreements – we’re not getting smarter if we’re not testing hypotheses. How will success be measured? Is your design as successful as it could be? How can you ooch it toward success?

He also suggests that we have to share early and share often, even thought it might hurt. I totally agree with this, and I’d take it a step further: don’t just email a PDF. Reserve a conference room and fire up the projector.

There’s some other good stuff in his short presentation. I highly suggest watching it.

See also:

The Product is the Interface

Erin Lynn Young — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:04:35 +0000

Flipping through the latest issue of Time magazine this evening, I came across several software ads, each featuring a big, prominent screenshot of the UI. I thought of the designers behind those screens.

As the folks behind the curtain, we know that a lot goes into a product. We talk about the backlog and the development burdens and how far things have come since the last release. We agonize over the databases and systems the product talks to, the timelines we’re up against, and the level of effort our design choices necessitate.

As owners of the UI, we’re constantly reminded that there’s a lot more going into our software than the UI. We’re pushed to be understanding when decisions are made to simplify things for our teammates. Cutting corners to make it easier for others often feels like the right thing to do.

These ads, however, serve as a reminder to me. Our users aren’t concerned with the timelines, the development effort, or the complexity of the integrations. To the user, the interface is the product.

As UI designers, we aren’t doing our job unless we focus our deepest empathy on the stakeholders that aren’t sitting around the conference table — our users. The users who interact with us in one main way — through our product’s interface.

When they project the site or app you’re working on at 30 ft wide for the launch party, will you beam or wince?

The interface is worth fighting for!

As far as the customer is concerned, the interface is the product.
— Jef Raskin

See also:

Agile UX: IXDA Austin

Erin Lynn Young — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 03:35:48 +0000

Tonight, Lynn Pausic of Expero presented to IXDA Austin with the suggestion that Agile & UX are possible. We met at frog (beautiful offices) and turnout was excellent.

Photo by the amazing Tori Breitling

Here are my notes from her presentation.

For UX & Agile to coexist, UX must first understand what Agile is.

“Agile software development is a group of software development methodologies based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams.”
UXers often don’t like it because requirements are vague. And it moves so fast — there’s often not time for design, there’s often not time for testing.
Why the disconnect? Agile is a software development process. Why are we trying to force-fit Agile into OTHER disciplines?
Think about Agile as a set of principles that can be applied to any discipline.

Software Methodologies

Waterfall: One phase before the next. Can be difficult to judge UX quality until very late. Requirements (the base of the project) can change when cycles are too long – making work from subseuqent other phases irrelevant.
Pure Agile: Development owns requirements, design, implementation, and testing. This can suck, because developers aren’t expects are requirements definition, IxD, usability, etc.
Scrum: Project management methodology. Working closely together. Quickly reacting to changing requirements.
The Mashup: Traditional Waterfall Requirements Gathering & Design, Agilee Development
None of these work perfectly.

Getting out of the Deliverables Business (Lean UX)

Judge Receptivity: Where is your organization today?
Determine Current Method(s)
Understand Release and UX Quality Goals. UX has to be a part of the MEASURED SUCCESS of a project.
Adhere to specific time cycles for judging progress.
Find Your Cadence

Source: Integrating UX and Agile

Guidelines for Integrating UX and Agile

Work toward the bigger picture and near term in parellel. You can’t focus on one thing at a time in Agile — that’s waterfall.
Customer (user) collaboration
Multi-tasking during a single cycle (Development does this every sprint)
Mingle with other disciplines

Why Agile is GOOD for UX (A countdown)

4. Transparency.

Unlike in waterfall, where we often don’t see development products until Alpha, Agile calls for code that’s always in a releasable state. It should be possible to judge UX progress and quality at any time. Additionally, there should be sprint demos. (On the flip side, UX needs to be transparent with the designs and associate clear status with each of them.)

3. Built-in Quality Control. Sprint Zero is the UX Designer’s best friend. Use it to:

Set UX Quality goals for the release
Get familiar with Epics
Identify Users (if not already done)
UX input on backlog (especially if the backlog already exists)
Propose a UX cadence that will support release goals
Do a little bit of design
UX needs to have input on the user acceptance criteria for each user story.

2. Customer (End User) Collaboration

End-user and the “customer” might be different.
User feedback should be gathered on design prototypes and other artifacts NOT JUST implemented code.
Purists – Development driving user research — not best skillset match.
Be sure that these activities are baked into the cadence. (Maybe it’s user testing every other Wednesday.)
Get comfortable that with ambiguity.

We don’t know what we’ll be testing.
Or what users we’ll need to test
To reach release goals, this is our expected cadence

Identify “Go To People” who can represent your end users

Internal/First Line of Defence (Professional Services, Application Engineers, or Support folks)
Customers, prospects, etc.

User Research Reporting

Do your job — communicate findings. Don’t freak out about polish. Use low-fidelity outputs.
Encourage observation during user sessions for transparency
If management needs “fancy reports”, pick a milestone. Something significant. Don’t do it all the time.
Triage feedback: Put it into either New Functionality, Feature Enhancements, Usability Issues, Defects. Product Backlog. Design Backlog. Own the responsibility for having action TAKEN on each finding.

1. Highly Iterative.

UXers need to be comfortable in murkier waters. Don’t be TOO top down, TOO bottom up, or TOO fast. UX needs to understand the users, the bigger picture, and the context — not the eensy weensy details. But development wants chunks of work that are easy to comprehend, estimate, and test. Therein lies the rub. Understanding where others come from can help you meet the needs or each party instead of focusing on the conflict about the “right” way to do it.

You can learn more about Lynn’s approach to Agile UX in her blog series, entitled, “Integrating UX and Agile.”

See also:

Axure 6.5 Beta! Woo hoo!

Erin Lynn Young — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:41:34 +0000

Just realized on Friday that Axure 6.5 Beta has been released.

Some of the features I’m most excited about are basic ones that I’ve been waiting on for a while.

Text Links in rich text that can have interactions and annotations
Default styles for Text Links including default Mouse Over and Mouse Down styles
Rotating shapes and images
Search integrated into selection menus (selecting widgets, values, etc.)
Drag and drop image files from Windows Explorer or Finder to the diagram
Ability to upload to AxShare directly from Axure RP

Anyway, I’m an Axure geek and I’m excited to start using the latest version.

See also:

Status Message Fail

Erin Lynn Young — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:39:29 +0000

Dear Microsoft,

Thanks for trying, but 26,195 means nothing to me. How many did you start with? How far have you gotten? How much longer do I have to wait? Please throw me (your patient user) a bone here!

Love,

Erin

See also:

Quotes on UX Design

Erin Lynn Young — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:27:23 +0000

A thread on Quora is accumulating notable quotations about design & user experience. These are some of the ones I don’t want to lose track of:

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
— Hans Hofmann

Questions about whether design is necessary or affordable are quite beside the point: design is inevitable. The alternative to good design is bad design, not no design at all.
— Douglas Martin, 1989

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

As far as the customer is concerned, the interface is the product.
— Jef Raskin

When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
— Buckminster Fuller, the chemical scientist

You can use an eraser on the drafting table or a sledge hammer on the construction site.
— Frank Lloyd Wright

Users spend 99% of their time on other sites.
— Jakob Nielsen

Here are some of the collections referenced in the thread:

See also:

Simple & Smart Opportunity: An Emailed Receipt

Erin Lynn Young — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:08:08 +0000

“What’s an email address where I can send your receipt?”

Such a smart tactic.

See also:

The Best Kept Secret in Mobile Design Patterns

Erin Lynn Young — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:35:14 +0000

OK, I’ll admit – it may only be the best kept secret because I haven’t ever really told anyone about it.

But basically, iphoneux.tumblr.com is my little spot for quickly posting screen grabs capturing design samples I like from iPhone apps & the mobile web.

I’m really just getting started with it, but I thought it was worth sharing. Check it out.

See also:

Why Register?

Erin Lynn Young — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:22:52 +0000

I stumbled upon this design sample on a recipe at AmericasTestKitchen.com. It’s an interesting way to let the user know that registration is required to access the content they want. Does it work? I can’t make any promises… but, I registered (and their recipes are very, very thorough by the way!)

See also:

Oh, Facebook Ads!

Erin Lynn Young — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:27:49 +0000

This ad popped up for me on Facebook today, and I found it intriguing for so many reasons:

Does Facebook know that I’ve been researching castor oil? (FYI, our little one is a week overdue.)
Are daily bathroom visits not a normal thing?
I’m not entirely sure what a “flush” is, but I know all I need to know about a product that markets itself by its ability to make one poop.

Yes, I have a lot of time on my hands as I await Greyson’s arrival. But, still.

See also: