agile ux fullday-uxpa2016

Making UX Agile and LeanUXPA 2016, Seattle, WA

Introductions• John• Thyra• Carol

Agile Basics

Agile is• Small teams • Making small pieces of work - “shippable

increments”• Effective communication• Ideally co-located

Original Via Spotify (original presentation not available). More at: http://www.slideshare.net/vmysla/scrum-at-spotify?qid=2345c3ad-7e68-4383-9673-9e715ff47a75&v=default&b=&from_search=14 and https://labs.spotify.com/

Photo by Federico Bierti - https://www.flickr.com/photos/53318225@N00/

We all need to be in the same boat…

Test

Developers

Product Owner

Sales

Service Engineering

Globalization

User Experience

Content

Operations

Marketing

WaterfallDefine

Design

Build

Test

Deploy

Months & Years Learn

Learn

Learn

Agile

TestDeliverableDefine & DesignBuild

Weeks LearnLearn Learn

TestDeliverableDefine & DesignBuild TestDeliverableDefine & DesignBuild

Agile History• February 2001: The Agile Manifesto written

at Snowbird Ski Resort in Utah• Authors:14 male software engineers• Agile, as originally conceived, understood

nothing of UCD or UX processes

Agile Manifesto

We have come to value the items in the dark boxes more.

Full version: http://agilemanifesto.org/

Individuals and Interactions Customer Collaboration

over processes and tools over contract negotiation

Working Software Responding to Change over comprehensive

documentationover following a plan

Individuals and Interactions• Individuals and interactions over processes

and tools• Communication• Working together• Creating opportunities to learn and share

• Not doing activities just to check a box• Not allowing tools to get in the way• Finding faster/better ways to work

Shared Documents Aren’t Shared Understanding

Cartoon by Luke Barrett © Jeff Patton, all rights reserved, www.AgileProductDesign.com

Working Software• Working software over comprehensive

documentation• Working software is the measure of work• Documentation doesn’t improve a system

• Complex systems • Documentation is sometimes necessary to make

“self serve”• System should be clear and well designed

Customer Collaboration• Customer collaboration over contract

negotiation• Software was built for a client (not broad sets of

users)

• We interpret as Users

Responding to Change• Responding to change over following a plan

• Planning is short-term and flexible• Change is a constant – embrace it and prepare • When things change, so does the plan

Benefits of being Incremental• When development runs out of

time/resources, the shipped solution• Delivers maximum value• Has a complete design without holes• Has much higher quality• Has no wasted design work

Agile Qualities• Iterative• Incremental• Continuous• Collaborative• Transparent

Agile Terminology

Scaling Agile at Spotify via Slideshare of Vlad Myslahttp://www.slideshare.net/vmysla/scrum-at-spotify?qid=2345c3ad-7e68-4383-9673-9e715ff47a75&v=default&b=&from_search=14

Squads, Tribes, Chapters and Guilds

Scrum• Daily Ceremonies - Standup

• 15 minute standing meeting• What you did, what you are doing, blockers

• Sprints• 2 – 4 weeks of work • Culminate in a potentially shippable product

increment

mountaingoatsoftware.com

Scrum

Sprints

TestDeliverableDefine & DesignBuild

Sprint 2Sprint 1 Sprint 3

TestDeliverableDefine & DesignBuild TestDeliverableDefine & DesignBuild

Kanban• Finite number of “tickets”• Cannot put more work in until previous work is

done• Team members pull work as work is

completed• Time-boxing is optional• All work is a collaboration• Information radiators

Kanban - work is shared on walls/boards

Story=

User Problem with acceptance criteria

Epic > Story > Task

BacklogEpic

1

Epic 2

Epic 1Story

AStory

B

Story BTask X Task Y

Name this…

https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2015/01/22/the-curls-of-ares-2/

Fibonacci Sequence

Estimating Stories• T-shirts, Fibonacci, days work, etc.• Minimal effort to guess• If cannot guess, further define story

https://www.planningpoker.com/

UX Activity Estimation• Should UX activities be estimated towards

team velocity?• A hotly debated topic

• No. They UX stories should be tracked separately, in parallel

• Yes. UX stories should be tracked with other work, especially when part of active work

• “Working software is the primary measure of progress”

Velocity• Measure amount of work done • Determine our velocity or “burn down”• Estimates and velocity tell us what we can get

done• Longer term, squads can improve velocity

Parking Lot• Used to get to a firm estimate and clarify

questions • Able to respond Go/No Go• Problems that can be solved in a single

conversation

Design Spikes• Used to get to a firm estimate when not

enough information to determine in a parking lot• Intense focus on issue with multiple resources• Done by a few while other work continues

• Multiple resources (not just design)• Must continue to support ongoing

development

User Acceptance Testing• Customer/client feedback in traditional Agile• Clients (not users):

• Are shown a demo by team• Do not touch or interact with system• Not typically a member of the Agile team• Are rarely the users of the system being designed

• When feedback is collected in traditional Agile – after iteration/sprint

Demos and Retros• Demos are “playing back” what was done

during the sprint• Matches the Epics/Stories from the Sprint• Celebrate progress

• Retrospective• Looking at what went well (continue doing)• What could be improved• What we should stop doing

Customers and Lean UX

Customer Feedback – in traditional Agile• Fails to find most learnability and usability

issues• Misses opportunity to inform future design• Misses opportunity to gain better user insight

with prototypes, observation, etc.

Bring Users into Agile• UX brings the end-user into Agile and expands

the meaning of “Customer” to extend to the end-user

Lean Startup• Lean is a business development method,

popularized by Eric Ries.

• It’s like Agile for the business side of things• Uses the same build – test – learn cycle

for business models and product development• Only measure of success is market behavior

Lean UX• Agile is the perfect product delivery method

for Lean businesses• Same adaptations that make UX practices

work in Agile also make them work in Lean• Lean UX = Agile UX

• Rely on early research and usability testing (learn as you go)

• Less time to conduct research and think through problems

• Handled as a spike if needed

Eric Ries @ericries via @MelBugai on Twitter at LeanStartupMI in 2011

"The biggest waste of all is building something no one wants“

- Eric Ries @ericries

Developing Software in AgileGetting Agile Teams to Care About Usability

We Come from Different Places

By Jeff Patton as interpreted by Jim Laing – Source: http://www.agileproductdesign.com/blog/user_experience_relevance.html

Agile• Agile is a philosophy, not a specific set of tools

• Principles are not mandates• UX was not deliberately excluded

• Software development methods• Scrum, Kanban, XP, etc. meet the criteria for Agile• “Waterfall” does not

Agile Frustrations


team member

Agile UX: The Good• Most important features are done first • Working together – not “over the wall”• Keep up with technology and environmental

changes• Enables iteration of requirements• Less “design drift” and less wasted design

Agile UX: The Good (continued)• Issues get fixed• “Done” includes design• Satisfying to see designs in real use• Learn from actual product use• User data has effect on current release

So Now What?• If Agile doesn’t care about UX, why should my

Agile team care about what I do?

Getting Developers to Care• UX Fail strategies:

• “I’m just going to keep doing my job the way I always have and telling the team what they need to do.”

• “I’m just going to let them go ahead and fail. Then they’ll come to me begging and let me do my job.”

Be Part of the Team• They’re not going to “stop the train” for you• Make UX processes Agile• Build trust by providing value of work• Attend daily standups/scrums

Get Ahead of the Train• Design one iteration ahead if necessary, so

you have designs ready to go when they are needed

• Regular usability testing (iteration-aligned)• Test whatever is ready that day• Plus your look-ahead designs• Plus user research for existing issues and potential

future work• Test designs before developers build them –

saves arguments

Welcome the Team to your World• Invite developers to observe tests of features

they wrote • Seeing someone struggle is strongly motivating to

them• Even more so for product managers

• Engage developers in helping you to figure out solutions• Their knowledge of code and systems provides

ability to come up with innovative solutions• Credit developers when features they wrote

work well (even if you designed it)

Bring Your World to Them• No time or inclination to watch your testing?

• Record the tests • Bring key clips to the next meeting(s)• Provide easy access to sessions (always consider

ethics)• Information radiators

• Share info on the walls• Use online tools• Get it in the backlog

Photo: https://medium.com/@FBResearch/beyond-bullet-points-four-creative-ways-to-share-research-c10fa047f025#.cdauyngei

Fit into the Process• Time product testing: results ready when most

useful• Track usability metrics on the team dashboard

• Ensure they are reported upwards• Help prioritize usability problems to simplify

backlog grooming• Add preemptive cards to the schedule for

“problems we will find while testing”

Design Adapts to Agile• Falling short of end goals is a constant

• Focus on meeting user’s primary needs • Constant Improvement is key

• Widen the Design family• Distribute the work• Empower entire squad to inform design

• Agile is reactive – no time for predictive work• Prepare to react

Adapted from Jim Laing’s presentation at UX Pittsburgh, May 2014

Participate in Retrospectives• Encourage retrospectives if they aren’t

happening• Information provided enough/too much?• Questions still open?• Still confusing/frustrating?• More effectively communicate user needs?

Image: http://intland.com/blog/project-management-en/tips-and-tricks-to-make-the-most-of-your-retrospectives/

Let’s Chat

Let’s Get to Know Each Other• Who has had agile training?

• Reading, no formal training• Other team members trained• No training• Some training

• How long have you been doing Agile?

Who’s Here?• Roles?

• UX practitioner, UX manager -- is this who we all are?

• Resources?• Single UX resource on a single Agile team/project• Single UX resource on 2+ Agile teams/projects• Part of a UX team on a single Agile team/project• Part of a UX team on 2+ Agile teams/projects

• Maturity of UX Practice?

What’s Your Team Like?• Distributed/remote?• Large/small?• Who else is on the team?• How long have you been together?

Balancing Team Work• Within UX team

• Research• Wires/clickable prototypes• Usability testing preparation• Usability test facilitation• UX Issue wrangling• Visual design• What else?

• Split team up on different items or attack together

Marketing, Sales and Business Analysts• Have customer access• Knowledge

• Business rules• Usage patterns, what other tools customer has

• Can support• Research (users/stakeholders)• Wires• Demos/Clickable prototypes

Developers and UX• Trust is key• FED (front end developers) and UI Developers

• Can provide• Clickable prototypes • Coded “prototypes”

product owner =

product manager+

dev lead+

interaction designer

Break

30 Minutes, Fifth Avenue


Squads, Tribes, Chapters and Guilds

Parallel-Track Workflow

a.k.a. Staggered Sprints

Agile Design Timing: Parallel Tracks• Developer track: Focus is on production code• Interaction designers track: Focus is on user

contact

Iteration 1: Developer Track• Underlying architecture work• Critical features with little user interface

design required

Iteration 1: Interaction Designers• Design, create prototypes, usability test

(UTest), and iterate (RITE method)• Field studies to understand user needs (contextual

inquiry)

Iteration 2: Developers• Take the verified designs and start making

them a reality

Iteration 2: Interaction Designers• UTest completed code for integration and implementation

issues


issues• Use data gathered in the last iteration to create designs for

next iteration


issues• Use data gathered in the last iteration to create designs for

next iteration• Field studies for detailed information needed for upcoming

iterations

And so on…• Constant communication between the two tracks is

essential for success• These are not just hand-offs

We repeat:• Constant communication between the two

tracks is essential for success

• These are not just hand-offs

• This is the most misunderstood thing about staggered sprints.

During Each Iteration• Be present with developers day to day• Are they building what you expect?• Get their feedback on your designs in

progress

© Copyright 2014 Desirée Sy & John Schrag. All rights reserved.

During Each Iteration• Look back• Validate the work done in previous iteration


During Each Iteration• Look ahead• Design for next iteration (n+1)• Research for future iterations (n+2, n+3…)


Combine Your Investigations• Maximize your time with users• Test completed code• Test paper prototypes of upcoming design• Elicit data for future design


Agile Roles and Parallel Tracks• UX Takes Time• Having multiple roles (e.g. UX + product

owner, UX + scrum master) leads to overload

• Working on multiple teams is a bad idea

Incremental Implementation

Getting to complete workflows, one DONE at a time

“Story”=

User Problem with acceptance criteria

Story Myths• Story = feature• Story = specification• Story must fit in one iteration• Stories are time limited• All stories have firm estimates and specs in

Iteration Zero (or even Iteration One)• These are NOT true.

Story Examples

Advantages of the “As a user, I want” user story template. By Mike Cohn

http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/advantages-of-the-as-a-user-i-want-user-story-

template

To make a story INVEST• A good story is:

• Independent• Negotiable• Valuable to users or customers• Estimate-able• Small• Testable

User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development, By Mike Cohn

What if your story is too big?• If work can’t be completed in one iteration• Where are the break lines?• How do you prioritize the feature cards?

Big Design - Waterfall• Everyone signs off before Dev begins

• One big design document contains everything• Dev builds it until they run out of time• QA doesn’t test until Dev has run out of time

• Result• Whatever is built first is completed• Details are left out, quality issues identified too

late• Holes are left in the design

• Much of your design effort is wasted

Big Design - Agile• Deliver incremental value quickly• Break the story into small pieces• What is the smallest piece that can be built?

• Delivers value to the user• Incremental • Something to learn from• Minimum Viable/Valuable Product (MVP) – from

Lean Startup

Big Design – Agile (continued)• Schedule the pieces in order of importance• Design incrementally, as if the each piece

were the final one• Change your future plans between iterations if

you have learned new things

Original via Spotify (original presentation not available). More at: http://www.slideshare.net/vmysla/scrum-at-spotify?qid=2345c3ad-7e68-4383-9673-9e715ff47a75&v=default&b=&from_search=14 and https://labs.spotify.com/

Story Card Progress• Is UX Needed?

• What is the story?• What do we know? • What do we need to know?

• Conduct Lean UX to answer outstanding questions• Interviews, observations, prototype testing, etc.• Work with Dev to respond to questions as needed

92

Kanban

Do Review Done

Benefits of being incremental• When development runs out of

time/resources, the shipped solution• Delivers maximum value• Has a complete design without holes• Has much higher quality• Has no wasted design work

Mistakes to avoid• Designing all the detail up front• Not thinking about the full experience up front• Not breaking things down far enough• Not delivering a complete (sub) story each

iteration – “now the user can…”

Incremental Example: Doorway• User story: The user can get in and out of her

house easily.• Completion Criteria:

- Secure - Insulated - Lets light in - Allows large furniture items to pass - Fits with house décor - Works even without keys

Incremental Example: Doorway• Initial Rough Design:

- Beautiful Colonial Door - Unbreakable translucent window - Programmable digital lock - Steel deadbolt - Metal-clad on the outside - High R-Value

Incremental Example: Doorway• What is the minimum work that will give the

user incremental value towards their goal?• What needs to be designed for that?

• What is the next smallest item that will give the user an added capability?

• What needs to be designed for that?

ActivityStory Selection

Activity: Early Story Selection• Select the first 10 stories that should be done.

• How many do you have to complete before

you would be willing to try it with real customers?

• See handout

Incremental Implementation

Continued

Fitting This to Your Process• The purpose of incremental implementation is

to get feedback early and often• After each iteration, gather feedback• Questions that can affect your breakdown:

• Who evaluates your product?• Is it always the same people?• Are your target users internal or external?

Gather feedback from• Internal ‘expert users’• Beta/Usability testers under NDA• The general public (after release or open beta)• Internal users in a protected ‘sandbox’• Internal users after general deployment

Before releasing, consider• Are you getting the feedback you need?• Is there enough completed for an external

user to evaluate?

• Sometimes you may want to hold back certain work until more is done.

Make it Easier for the Team• Write staged specifications

• Best guess at breaking the design into 1-iteration Story increments

• “Break” the Stories with developers into Tasks• Remember: they own the Tasks• You need to know how to map those back to Stories &

Capabilities (See story mapping)

Ways to Break a Story Down• Workflows

• Stories with many “mini-workflows”• e.g., Channel changer

• Allowed inputs• Story that applies across different data types• e.g., Image file reader

• Capacity• Completion criteria involve extreme size or speed• e.g., File transfer of large files

Example: Ordering Your Sub-Stories• Big Story: User can move, duplicate, or

remove selected text in a document.


Example: Story Breakdown• Big Story: User can move, duplicate, or


• Note: there are many possible designs that achieve this user capability


Example: Story Breakdown• Big Story: User can move, duplicate, or


• The selected design is to provide 4 menu items with hotkeys: Cut, Copy, Paste, and Delete.


Example: Story Breakdown• Written out as proper stories:

• The user can move selected text out of the document and into an off-screen clipboard.

• The user can copy selected text into the off-screen clipboard.

• The user can replace selected text with the contents of the off-screen clipboard.

• The user can delete selected text.


Example: Story Breakdown• Stories: Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete• How engineering breaks it down:

• Sprint one: create memory buffer system• Sprint two: add menu items, tooltips, etc• Sprint three: Copy• Spring four: Cut, Paste, Delete

• What is wrong with this?


Example: Story Breakdown• Stories: Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete

• How do you order these four stories?• Which one comes first? Why?• Which one comes second? Why?• Which one comes third? Why?


ActivityStory Breakdown

Activity: Story Breakdown• Chandra needs all the application functions

available to him in his native language or another language he understands well.

• Which of these breakdowns is/are Agile? Why?

• What factors would determine which breakdown you should choose?

• See handout

What if no breakdown is possible?• You can have a story with one single capability

that takes more than a sprint to build.• For example, a calculation with a difficult

algorithm.

• This is an engineering problem, not a UX problem.

• If possible, see if the work-in-progress can be validated using partial results.

Discussion• What are your story breakdown problems?

Lunch12:30 pm – 1:30 pm

Agile Qualities• Iterative• Incremental• Continuous• Collaborative• Transparent

User Story Mapping

Shared Documents Aren’t Shared Understanding

Cartoon by Luke Barrett © Jeff Patton, all rights reserved, www.AgileProductDesign.com

User Story Mapping• Organizing user stories

into a map that communicates experience

Book: User Story Mapping, Discover the whole story, build the right product. By Jeff Patton (with Peter Economy)

Visible Depiction of Available User Stories• Frame questions such as

• What is needed?• When is it needed?• Where is there value?• What is really important?

Depth and Breadth of Entire System

© Jeff Patton, all rights reserved, www.AgileProductDesign.com

time

Below each activity, or large story are the child stories that make it up

Arrange spatially to tell bigger stories

Represents Complexity and Size of Work

time

Refine the map and test for completeness with the entire team - developers, designers, BA’s etc.

Conversations to Understand• Relationships between stories• Structure and hierarchy of related stories• Functionality that is being built • Conversations to share knowledge and clarify

assumptions

Clarity of What is to be Built• Organizes stories• Context of use for product• Clear understanding of use makes

prioritization easier• Backlog completeness can be verified

• Can be overwhelming to see entire product• Important to know information now rather than

later

Enables Better Releases• Select relevant, high priority stories in

releases• Valuable functionality• Complete sets of functionality

• Plan, at a high level • What would come next• What is for “later”


Activity: Story Mapping

• What were all the things you did to get ready to be here today?• Starting from the moment you woke up until you

arrived here• Write one item per sticky note

Activity: Story Mapping

• In a small group (3 to 5) merge stickies into a single model• Arrange left to right in order that makes sense

to group• Eliminate duplicates• Cluster items that seem similar and create

labels for the clusters if items that seem to go together


* from Cockburn’s Writing Effective Use Cases

Story Detail – Level of Fidelity


Functional or “Sea level”I’d reasonably expect to complete this in a single sitting

Sub-Functional or “Fish level”Small tasks that by themselves don’t mean much. I’ll do several of these before I reach a functional level goal

Activity or “Kite level”Longer term goals often with no precise ending. I’ll perform several functional tasks in the context of an activity

Too abstract

Too detailed

Think about user experience at this

level

Be sensitive to your user task’s “altitude”

Discover as much as possible, as quickly as possible• Prototype early • Learn from prototypes and iterate

Agile UX Prioritization

Knowing what’s important

Timing for Prioritization• When grooming the backlog• During formative usability testing

Prioritizing Problems• It’s better to fix the few most important issues

than to find every issue because:• Big problems can mask other problems• Every fix changes user behavior

Prioritizing ProblemsHigh ValueLow Cost

High ValueHigh Cost

Low ValueLow Cost

Low ValueHigh Cost

UX/Product Managementdetermines “Value”


High ValueHigh Cost

Low ValueLow Cost

Low ValueHigh Cost

Development determines “Cost”


High ValueHigh Cost

Low ValueLow Cost

Low ValueHigh Cost

A BC Seriously?

“If a user can’t find or use feature, it’s the same as if the feature is broken.”

VS.

“It’s more important to fix things that really don’t work. The user can learn the hard stuff.”

Prioritizing UX vs “real” bugs

Prioritizing UX vs “real” bugs• You cannot win this argument on a case-by-

case basis• Instead, adopt a strategy for getting required

investment in UX work

Strategies for Getting Investment in UX• Political strategy: Create a formal equivalence

of UX versus bug priorities.• Investment strategy 1: Block out fixed time• Investment strategy 2: Block out people• End-run strategy: get your own engineer

• Fix UX problems early, if possible.

Detail Matters• Users are usually more delighted by low-cost

annoyance fixes than by big flashy new features

Focus and Negotiation• Keep an intense focus on fixing the most

important things

• Negotiate on behalf of users• Represent their needs as best you can

Break

30 Minutes

Research & Requirements

Research Balancing Act

Understand users, context, etc. Create personas, mental models, etc. Prepare for story mapping

and other sessions thoroughly

Strive for UX Best Practices

Engineers need designs to develop - will move on without UX involvement

Research cannot continue forever

Meet Production Needs

Agile requires leaner methods

How much is good enough?• What is being developed?• What do you know?• What questions are still open?

• Meet goal when users starting to talk about colors and icons (not functionality)

Light Design - Lean UX• Familiar UX methods made lean:

• Iterative (flexible, change as needed)• Repeatable (easy to do, expected next steps)• Incremental (lead into next, small changes over

time)

Tips for Lean• Usability Testing

• Insert questions to find out more for open issues• Schedule regular testing to reduce preparation

time• Reach users quickly for meaningful

information (panels, remote testing, surveys etc.)• Incentives as needed

• Put all data together quickly – no big reports

Documentation & Reporting

Don’t Overwhelm Audience or You• Document in Wiki or similar (avoid PPT)• Just enough to understand the “why”• Always challenging due to:

• Limited time• Multiple changes over time• Findings building upon one another

150

Provide Details as Appropriate• Archive prototypes and other deliverables• Regulatory environment or complex

interactions • Test plans and guides• Detailed changes• Participant information as needed, but avoid

sharing with wider team

151

Capture the Evolution• Helps avoid making same mistakes later• Helpful to capture first, middle and end

screenshots:• primary pages• primary features• contentious issues

• Don’t sweat the small stuff• Use final prototypes as a base for

recommendations (vs. written documentation and/or comps) 152

Separation affects documentation needs• When team is not co-located, does not share

time zones and/or does not share language• Use additional documentation to communicate

and coordinate• Use Agile tools (GitHub, JIRA/Confluence) and UX

tools (Mural.ly, etc.) to share understanding• Use communication tools as frequently as possible

(Skype, online meetings, etc.)153

Lean Reporting• Put all data together quickly• No big reports• Information as needed

• Get it to the team – quickly (Evernote, Mural.ly, Trello, Story/Bug tracker, etc.)

• Tell the story – pertinent information – who, why?• Provide solutions (wireframes, etc.)

Tell the Story• Strive for “Caterpillar to Butterfly”

• Show progressions of key sections of the interactions

• Use more screenshots – fewer words• Explain what changes were made and why

155

Activity: Make it Lean (45 minutes)

Activity: Determine User Expectations• Early stages of a project - defining scope. • Stakeholders: “Users will never sign a catering

contract on their phone!” Doesn’t need to work on the phone.

• UX team: Not likely to be their primary access choice, but will be desired to be done on their phone.• You have 2 days: Determine if common/critical use

case • Teams of 3 people• Make a plan for what to do (10 minutes)• Share your plan

Guidelines• What do you need to know?• What resources do you have?• How much effort/time do you have?

Activity: Part 2• Take roles and act them out• Discuss ramifications of findings

• What's in and what's out?• Make tradeoffs – conversations• Vote within teams

• See handout

Sprint Zero

Sprint Zero for Scrum Teams• Time to do initial research, setup usability

testing, etc.• When technical teams are setting up

environments• Back end that doesn’t hit front end

• Getting alignment on business goals – WHY??• All bought in across board• Do just enough work to get development

started

Alternatives to Sprint Zero• Can be in parallel sprints while other teams

are wrapping up previous work• Do work in Sprint 1

• Planning, story mapping, etc. (or already done)• Story creation (or not done yet, or will do later)• Create initial wires and prototypes (or in Sprint 1)

• Goal is to have initial questions answered – doesn't matter what you call it

Pros and Cons - Sprint Zero• Pros

• Gives UX a head start• Lot of backend work needs to be done anyway• Establish common vision

• Who for?• Common “elevator statement”

• Cons• Can be a trap leading to Waterfall

• Big Design Up Front (BDUF)• Time box and Focus on Outcomes to avoid this

Requirements• Change in presence of the artifact• Questions change as you learn more • Pointless to do ALL requirements gathering up

front• Works better iteratively – unless in hands of

those that will use it• Don't know what we don't know

Make it Quick!• Proxies as needed• Quick enough analysis• Get to 80% confidence • Continued learning with additional contacts

• Usability testing• Customer visits (enterprise software)

Setting Expectations• Developers

• Only get a little bit of information at a time• Need to fit work in• May need to rework as we learn• Repeat it as we go

Arguments About UX• Not done (what is “done?”)• Indecisive (make up your mind!)• Never right (“more feedback already?”)

Agile Usability Testing

UX Made “Agile”• Any UX method can be adapted

• Don’t have to give up our favorite methods • Don’t have to learn new ones• Doesn’t take much effort to adapt our methods to

fit the Agile process• Think about “lean” and “iterative” methods• RITE is a good place to start

RITE Overview• Qualitative user feedback

• actions + comments • Series of small usability tests• 3 participants each day• Minimum of 3 days of testing

• Iteration between testing days• Total of 5 days

RITE Process

Test Update Test

123

High

Medium

Low

Priority & Level of Effort

What Works for RITE• Best used early in project lifecycle

• Early concepts• Need to be vetted with users• Can assist in quickly shaping designs

• Doesn’t this sound “agile”?

172

Evaluation + Testing• Think evaluation → testing throughout the

product development lifecycle• Start with design evaluations and move onto

testing the deliverables for each Sprint/Iteration

• Start with the big questions and narrow down quickly (what would be the top 3 things to fix/improve? would you use it? Would it be a “wow”? which of 3 approaches do you prefer?)

Number of Participants• Think fast and iterative

• For example ~5 participants for each, and iterate if needed

• Key is to get the needed feedback, iterate, and move on • Do you really need 10 participants to tell you it’s

something they would never use?• Know when enough is enough

• If 3 participants so far have “failed”, do you need to test the other 2?

• Note: personas can be agile too: top 1, confirm, test

Testing Cycles• Set a schedule and expectations with the

team early• User testing days (e.g., every Friday, we’ll

have 3 hours set aside for testing)• Schedule set to Sprints/Iterations (e.g., at end

of every Sprint, schedule a round of testing to cover what has been completed)

• Also consider combining sessions for multiple goals (e.g., test what was done last Sprint, get early feedback on what you are working on now)

Testing Materials• Use the lowest fidelity method possible to get

the needed information (the time spent in developing the materials is time you won’t have for iterating and testing)

• Use sketches and wireframes to work on basic concepts and keep attention focused away from details

• Use higher fidelity when you are testing the details and interactions

Test Only Until “Done”• Stop testing when you know enough to move

forward• Test for the big stuff first: when you start

hearing about icons and colors, not function or layout, you know it’s “enough”

Light Reporting• Don’t write a report• Focus on most important changes• Record change decisions and reasons why (for

future reference, and for onboarding new designers)

• Explain changes to the team face-to-face• Tell the story

Discussion

Discussion• Additional topics

• Bringing work in – how do you select the right thing(s)?

• Backlog grooming and where UX fits in• Types of prototypes• Other frameworks for Agile• Working with PM’s, and leadership

• What are your experiences?

Session Survey• www.uxpa2016.org/survey/318

http://www.uxpa2016.org/survey/318

Contacting the Presenters• John Schrag, [email protected]

@jvschrag• Thyra Rauch, [email protected] • Carol Smith, [email protected] @carologic

mailto:[email protected]



Additional Reference

Principles behind the Agile Manifesto1. Customer satisfaction by rapid delivery of useful software2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development3. Working software is delivered frequently (weeks rather than

months)4. Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers5. Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be

trusted6. Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (co-

location)7. Working software is the principal measure of progress8. Sustainable development, able to maintain a constant pace9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design10.Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is

essential11.Self-organizing teams12.Regular adaptation to changing circumstance

http://www.agilemanifesto.org/principles.html

• Adapting Usability Investigations for Agile User-Centered Design by Desirée Sy

• Journal of Usability Studies, Volume 2, Issue 3 (the most-cited paper in JUS)

• http://www.uxpajournal.org/

References• Shivani Mohan and Lissette Sotelo Parr, Sharing Ethnographic research:

https://medium.com/@FBResearch/beyond-bullet-points-four-creative-ways-to-share-research-c10fa047f025#.of9i2n5g7

agile ux fullday-uxpa2016

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