Lean UX, Product Stewardship, and Integrated Teams Several emergent themes in software design and development are converging into a new way of working: Entrepreneurs understand the strategic value of user experience design in the guise of Steve Blank’s customer development and Eric Ries’ lean startupManagement are entrusting designers with product management responsibilities as frustrated designers are seeking them outAgile teams are coming to recognize the contribution of UX as designers learn to function in agile environments Each of these ideas have significant impact on the way user experience designers approach their work and how businesses structure their design and development efforts. Lean UX Traditional User Experience (UX) design techniques were developed in waterfall environments. Lean UX leverages the highly fluid nature of modern lean and agile development practices. Lean UX is not interaction design shoehorned into agile frameworks. Product Stewardship Product stewardship relieves pressure on the product owner bottleneck.
XpVelocity extreme programming · project planning · estimation tags: Velocity is a notion from ExtremeProgramming that helps calibrate a plan, tying broad statements of effort into elapsed time. Velocity is a statement of how much stuff a team (or a person if it's personal velocity) gets done in a time period. You should usually determine velocity by measuring how much got done in past periods, following the principle of YesterdaysWeather. A typical approach is to average the velocity the past three time periods to determine velocity for future time periods. For example, a team is working in two week iterations and estimates effort for stories using StoryPoints. Velocity is a tool for calibrating estimations for YesterdaysWeather, it is not a measure of productivity. Velocity is commonly used with fixed iterations, but you can use the same idea with Kanban based planning.
The Roots of User-Centered Design — Beyond Wireframing: The Real-Life UX Design Process The UX Designer’s Downward Dog: Designing in a Lean Environment « Second Thoughts Posted: May 29th, 2012 | Author: Lindsay | Filed under: mobile , Projects , side project , User Interface , volunteer | No Comments » Two weeks ago, I wanted to work on a mobile design for New York Cares’ volunteers as a way to brush up on Photoshop and tinker with Marshall Bock’s iPhone 4s Template . Background: New York Cares matches approximately 53,000 volunteers every year to projects around the 5 boroughs through partner organizations. On the NYCares website, volunteers can search projects using a variety of criteria. This functionality is available through the mobile web, but is not optimized for mobile use, nor does the organization have a mobile application. Research: I created an 8 question survey to understand how other volunteers find projects (search with specific criteria versus browse), what criteria they use to select a project (type, day, borough, etc.), and the ideal project date (within a week, within a month). Check out my Pinterest boards and please do connect.
UX and Agile: Tying the knot "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a silver thruppence in her shoe."—classic wedding tradition In the modern software development environment, UX and agile practitioners are becoming part of a growing culture defining the way online products and services are being delivered. The modern UX team is much more multi-disciplinary and organic than ever before, and it's no surprise that hybrid processes and methodologies are being employed to ensure better management of personnel and project deliverables. Although UX and agile both address key pitfalls that exist in traditional software development to deliver a better solution for the end-user, sometimes UX and agile approaches seem to work against each other when people focus too much on the processes and procedures. Here are some factors and advice for a happy marriage between the two. Something Old: The project management triangle Something New: The project management triangle redefined Will it Last?
Client-Centered Services By Tal Bloom Published: April 22, 2013 “Just as we ask our clients to focus on users when making design decisions for their Web site, shouldn’t we similarly focus on our clients when making service decisions for a project?” As UX professionals, we practice user-centered design—which means we stay focused on users and their needs when designing a Web site, product, or service for a client. To actually put this into practice, though, we need to convince our clients to follow our UX approach. Well, just as we ask our clients to focus on users when making design decisions for their Web site, shouldn’t we similarly focus on our clients when making service decisions for a project? Figure 1—Consider your client’s goals and user needs to create a usable design and useful content View the full-size image In this article, I’ll flesh out these ideas, but first, let’s take a look at a case study. Case Study: Cultural Roadblocks So, how did this realization affect my approach? Turn Up Your Warmth
Balanced Team Agile Product Design, holistic product design and agile software development The Four Waves of User-Centered Design In the fall of 1988, a small group of professionals from the technology industry gathered at Bentley College (now University) in Waltham, Mass., to discuss the topic of user advocacy and assistance. These gatherings were informal, simply a group of professionals with a shared passion for improving the quality of technology for the user. Eventually, at the urging of participants, these meetings were formalized into a seminar series and, not long after that, an Information Design Certificate program. Though the term user experience did not yet exist, it was clear to the program designers (myself included) that there was a need for this type of formal instruction given that few, if any, formal programs existed in the U.S. at the time. We quickly adopted a holistic view of the domain including the study of human behavior, design, research methods, management, and testing. While much has changed over the years, the core guiding principles of the program have remained constant: Conclusion
Steve Blank So Agile Together: How designers and programmers can join forces to create great experiences Earlier this year, I attended a UX meetup that featured a panel discussing whether or not integrating UX designers into the agile software practice works. I noticed during the discussion that the panelists made strong distinctions between "developers" and UX designers. While this is commonplace, it stood out to me because I’m primarily working on the development side as a programmer, but I have an interest and background in user experience. I realize the need in larger organizations to hire for specific positions, but I think that as long as we maintain these distinctions, UX designers will not be able to effectively work within the agile software process. I also think the skill sets and aptitude for programmers and UX designers have significant overlap. Common Ground One of the principles listed on agilemanifesto.org is that, “Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.” People work much better together when they can find common ground. Creative Techies
Maturing Usability: Quality in Software, Interaction, and Value Overview Maturing Usability: Quality in Software, Interaction, and Value contains a collection of writings from various experts in the field of usability and user interface development. It provides an understanding of how current research and practice has contributed towards improving quality issues in software, interaction and value. I wrote Chapter 4 which describes how usability fits into the Agile lifecycle. Chapter List Part I: Quality in Software. Chapter 1. Part II: Quality in Interaction. Chapter 6. Part III: Quality in Value. Chapter 11. Who Should Read This Book? You! How to Obtain This Book Other: Go to your local bookstore (if it isn’t on the shelf then tell them to order it in!) Related Resources How to Write a Technical Book Let Us Help We actively work with clients around the world to improve their information technology (IT) practices, typically in the role of mentor/coach, team lead, or trainer.
7 Agile Best Practices that You Don’t Need to Follow There are many good ideas and practices in Agile development, ideas and practices that definitely work: breaking projects into Small Releases to manage risk and accelerate feedback; time-boxing to limit WIP and keep everyone focused; relying only on working software as the measure of progress; simple estimating and using velocity to forecast team performance; working closely and constantly with the customer; and Continuous Integration – and Continuous Delivery – to ensure that code is always working and stable. But there are other commonly accepted ideas and best practices that aren’t important: if you don’t follow them, nothing bad will happen to you and your project will still succeed. And there are a couple that you are better off not following at all. Test-Driven Development Teams that need to move quickly need to depend on a fast, efficient testing safety net. TDD is not only a way of ensuring that developers test their code. Pair Programming In Pair Programming Considered Harmful?