Slides from my talk at General Assembly's Intro to User Experience Day.

1. LEAN UX METHODS
General Assembly
Aug 24, 2011
Josh Seiden, @jseiden

3. Blog it!
Josh Seiden @jseiden #leanUX
www.luxr.co @luxrco #leanStartup
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4. Three parts
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5. Three parts
 Making things people want
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6. Three parts
 Making things people want
 Lean User Experience
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7. Three parts
 Making things people want
 Lean User Experience
 Methods: Getting started
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8. Making things people want
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9. Making things people want
 Most startups fail…
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10. Making things people want
 Most startups fail…
 …because they fail to create offerings that people
want.
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11. Making things people want
 Most startups fail…
 …because they fail to create offerings that people
want.
 Startup risk = market risk + technical risk.
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12. Making things people want
 Most startups fail…
 …because they fail to create offerings that people
want.
 Startup risk = market risk + technical risk.
 Lean Startup is a management approach that
entrepreneurs can use to reduce market risk.
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13. Internet Mouse…
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14. Internet Mouse…
www.luxr.co
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15. Internet Mouse…
www.luxr.co
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16. What is Customer Development?
Image © Brant Cooper, 2010
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17. Making things people want…
“Customer Development is the process of how you get
out of the building and search for the model.
Customer Development is designed so that you the
founder(s) gather first hand experience about
customer and market needs.”
SteveBlank.com, 5/13/2010
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18. In other words…
“Go speak (in person if possible) with living, breathing
customers to determine the validity of your
assumptions.”
“The Entrepreneurs Guide to Customer Development,” Cooper & Vlaskovits
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19. Design is hard for startups
Designers are experts in
making things people want.
But…
Many kinds of design
Many kinds of designers
Design is expensive
Outsourcing = bad idea
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20. Design is hard for startups
Designers are experts in
making things people want.
But…
Many kinds of design
Many kinds of designers
Design is expensive
Outsourcing = bad idea
Image credit: Jesse James Garret
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21. Design is hard for startups
Designers are experts in
making things people want.
But…
Many kinds of design
Many kinds of designers
Image credit: Jesse James Garret
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22. Design is hard for startups
Designers are experts in
making things people want.
But…
Many kinds of design
Many kinds of designers
Design is expensive
Image credit: Jesse James Garret
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23. Design is hard for startups
Designers are experts in
making things people want.
But…
Many kinds of design
Many kinds of designers
Design is expensive
Outsourcing = bad idea
Image credit: Jesse James Garret
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24. LEAN UX
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25. Hat Tip
Janice Fraser Lane Halley
@clevergirl @thinknow
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26. What is Lean UX?
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27. What is Lean UX?
An approach to User Experience for Lean Startups
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28. What is Lean UX?
An approach to User Experience for Lean Startups
 Every decision you make about your offering is a
design decision.
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29. What is Lean UX?
An approach to User Experience for Lean Startups
 Every decision you make about your offering is a
design decision.
 Every design decision is an hypothesis.
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30. What is Lean UX?
An approach to User Experience for Lean Startups
 Every decision you make about your offering is a
design decision.
 Every design decision is an hypothesis.
 Declare your assumptions and test them.
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35. Think, make, check. Build, measure, learn.
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36. Lean UX Principles
1. Design + product management + development = 1
product team.
2. Externalize!
3. Research with users is the best source of information
4. Focus on solving the right problem.
5. Generate many options and decide quickly which to
pursue
6. Recognize hypotheses & validate them
7. Rapid cycles: think/make/check
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37. Lean UX methods are…
 Lightweight  Divergent / Convergent
 Low‐fi  Fast
 Lo‐tech  Repeatable
 External  Rou>nized
 Face‐to‐face and  Goal‐driven
collabora>ve  Outcome‐focused
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38. In practice…
LEAN UX METHODS
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39. Eight (plus 1) methods for Lean UX
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40. Eight (plus 1) methods for Lean UX
1. Declare your assumptions
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41. Eight (plus 1) methods for Lean UX
1. Declare your assumptions
2. Write the test first
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42. Eight (plus 1) methods for Lean UX
1. Declare your assumptions
2. Write the test first
3. Minimum viable product
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43. Eight (plus 1) methods for Lean UX
1. Declare your assumptions
2. Write the test first
3. Minimum viable product
4. Get out of the building
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44. Eight (plus 1) methods for Lean UX
1. Declare your assumptions
2. Write the test first
3. Minimum viable product
4. Get out of the building
5. Dump and sort
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45. Eight (plus 1) methods for Lean UX
1. Declare your assumptions
2. Write the test first
3. Minimum viable product
4. Get out of the building
5. Dump and sort
6. Make a model
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46. Eight (plus 1) methods for Lean UX
1. Declare your assumptions
2. Write the test first
3. Minimum viable product
4. Get out of the building
5. Dump and sort
6. Make a model
7. Sketching
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47. Eight (plus 1) methods for Lean UX
1. Declare your assumptions
2. Write the test first
3. Minimum viable product
4. Get out of the building
5. Dump and sort
6. Make a model
7. Sketching
8. Pairing
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48. Eight (plus 1) methods for Lean UX
1. Declare your assumptions
2. Write the test first
3. Minimum viable product
4. Get out of the building
5. Dump and sort
6. Make a model
7. Sketching
8. Pairing
9. Get out of the building (again.)
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49. Method 1: Declare your assumptions
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50. Method 1: Declare your assumptions
What assumptions do you have?
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51. Method 1: Declare your assumptions
What assumptions do you have?
…about your customers?
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52. Method 1: Declare your assumptions
What assumptions do you have?
…about your customers?
…that if proven false, will cause you to fail?
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53. What assumptions are we making?
 Who is the user? Who is the customer?
 Where does our product fit in their work or life?
 What problems does our product solve?
 When and how is our product used?
 What features are important?
 How should our product look and behave?
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54. Method 2: Write the test first
We believe that person type has trouble/need/desire doing
problem/oppty.
We will know we have succeeded when qualitative and
quantitative outcome. This will improve KPI.
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55. Method 3: Minimum Viable Product
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56. Method 3: Minimum Viable Product
What is the smallest thing we can make to test
our hypothesis?
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57. Method 3: Minimum Viable Product
What is the smallest thing we can make to test
our hypothesis?
The answer to this question is your MVP.
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58. Method 4: Get out of the building
 Identify who do you want to talk to and what you
want to learn
In other words, what assumptions will you test?
 Plan your interview themes as a team
 Collect artifacts, debrief and share
 Use your visits for multiple purposes
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59. Sample interview flow
 Warm-up questions to set context
“Tell me a little about yourself…”
 Talk about real events, avoid conjecture
“Tell me about a recent time when you…”
 Show demos/sketches later in meeting
“Show me how you would use this to…”
 Express appreciation “Thanks for your time!”
 If the interview went well, it’s OK to ask if you can
contact them again later
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60. Method 5: Dump and sort synthesis
Make sense of what you learned
 Whole team activity
 What did we observe?
 One observation per sticky note
 Group into themes
 What assumptions did we confirm? Which ones did
we disprove?
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61. Method 6: Models
Externalize what you know:
Make it concrete by drawing it.
Make it visible by posting on a wall.
What do you know about people? Make personas.
What do you know about how they work? Make
workflow diagrams.
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62. Image credit: Lane Halley

64. Method 7: Sketching
Goal is to get to wireframes first
 Draw the workflow first
 Try different approaches
 Draw the whole process
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65. Method 7: Sketching
Draw the workflow first
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66. Method 7: Sketching
Try different approaches
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67. Method 7: Sketching
Draw the whole process
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68. Method 8: Pairing
Pair with pixel and code specialists
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69. Method 9: Get out of the building again!
 This time re-focus to test what you’ve made.
 Even so, start by listening, then show.
 Ask, “can you do?” Not, “Would you do?”
 Observe, listen, don’t sell.
 Look for stumbling blocks.
 Be a learner.
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70. The Lean UX Cycle
Declare your assumptions.
Write the test first.
What can I make today?
Get out of the building.
Synthesize.
Draw.
Evaluate.
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71. Want to attend a workshop? Tweet #LUXiNYC to @LUXrCo
THANK YOU!
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