Amritha Prasad and her team at Uber have transformed the boring, tedious task of getting from point A to point B—an accomplishment that would satisfy most people. But to Amritha, the journey’s just begun. She’s committed to continually raising the bar for what drivers and passengers expect from an Uber experience. Research is the key to understanding what will delight users. But if your team’s working under tight, hard deadlines, you’re going to have to cut some corners. How can you strategically build your MVP so you can learn the most about your users? When and how often should you test? Are crucial features falling through the cracks? Come along for the ride as Amritha shares her insights on early concept testing, prioritizing features, and the dangers of making assumptions about your users. Learn why you don’t have to nail it on the first try, and why any feedback is good feedback when you’re moving fast.

1. Building Magical Experiences
Through Smart Iteration
Amritha Prasad // @amrithap

2. HI, I’M AMRITHA

3. Carnegie Mellon University

4. Lover of Bollywood

5. Fan of Aziz Ansari

6. Currently at Uber

7. Quality is a bar, and we’re
challenged to constantly raise it.

8. Riders, Drivers & More

9. Uber + Spotify

10. THE STORY

11. An Epic Saga

12. Your Ride. Your Music.

13. With Some Villains

14. A hard deadline & tight timeline

15. We have no idea how
people will want to listen
to music inside of Ubers

16. Overcoming the obstacles

17. 1 Forming Design Principles
!
2 Anticipating the Gaps

18. FORMING DESIGN
PRINCIPLES

19. What is the most lightweight thing
to build that will delight users?

20. Everyone had their own
assumptions and ideas

21. We create design principles

22. “A list of guiding phrases
that help the team make
important decisions.”
-Jared Spool, “Creating Great Design
Principles: 6 Counter-Intuitive Tests”

23. Most importantly they stem
from research

24. Any user research is
absolutely better than none

25. Brainstorm Features

26. Lightweight wireframes

27. Testing Things Out

28. Give access to music the way
that users are used to

29. Provide control over what
plays at a song-level

30. It’s not always about what just
YOU want to listen to

32. On the driver side, it’s a choice

34. ANTICIPATING THE
GAPS

35. Thinking that the product will
turn out exactly how you
designed it is naive

36. A designer ACTUALLY has to be
a ninja and anticipate danger
before it hits

37. Prioritization
Photo Credit: jamiearnold.com

39. Adapting

40. Test it like it’s hot

41. Prioritize
Adapt
Test
Learn

42. THE RIDE GOES ON

43. Uber + Spotify

44. Together at last

45. 1 Forming Design Principles
!
2 Anticipating the Gaps

46. This is just the beginning, the
product is in its infancy

48. Staying on top of social media
is a great way to get early
feedback

49. I’m excited to learn & iterate.

50. Thank
you