Agile and UX do play nicely together

Agile and UCD do play nicely together

Jo Packer - 29th September

Wednesday, 13 October 2010

Agile and UCD essentially try to solve the same problem

• They began around the same time

• Are a reaction to the waterfall method that people were struggling with

• Both move away from lengthy up-front specification documents

• Both avoid releasing in epic chunks


KEY FEATURES OF UCD


AGILE AND UCD ARE PRETTY SIMILIAR IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT


ATTRIBUTES OF AGILE AND UCD


BE AWARE OF POTENTIAL

SIDE EFFECTS OF UCD


“TRYING TO DESIGN THE WHOLE THING UP FRONT IS SIMPLY TOO

HARD AND, MORE IMPORTANTLY, NOT A BENEFICIAL WAY OF DEVELOPING

SOFTWARE “

Alan CooperThe Inmates Are Running The Asylum


BE AWARE OF POTENTIAL

SIDE EFFECTS OF AGILE


GETTING THE BALANCE RIGHT


“PROJECT SUCCESS IS NOT PRODUCT SUCCESS”

Jeff Patton, Agile Alliance


MAKE THE PRODUCTS WE BUILD

MORE ENGAGING FOR THE PEOPLE THAT USE THEM


EXCEED PEOPLE’S EXPECTATIONS


LETS RAISE THE BAR


INTERACTIONS CAN BE FUN


INTERACTIONS CAN BE FUN


GAME MECHANICS ARE FUN AND WORK

IF USED CORRECTLY THEY HAVE CAN A MASSIVE IMPACT ON USER BEHAVIOUR


UX ACTIVITIES NEED TO BE MODIFIED

TO FIT AGILE


AGILE CYCLES NEED TO BE MODIFIED

TO ACCOMADATE UX ACTIVITY


HOW DOES STRATEGY FIT IN?


SOME SCRUM IMPLIMENTATIONS ADVOCATE UX ACTIVITY IN CYCLE 0

Diagram courtesy of Anthony Colfelt -‐ Crea6ve Design Director ‘Different’


http://www.boxesandarrows.com/person/8678-colfelt

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/person/8678-colfelt

DON’T FALL INTO A COMMON AGILE UX STATE OF AFFAIRS


13 tips to help Agile and UCD play nicely together

• Always communicate the business and user value of a piece of work

• Run collaborative sketching / ideas sessions with designers, developers and QA

• Keep your design iterations one step ahead of development iterations.



• Work closely with those responsible for the visual design of the product. Try working in Photoshop together.

• Try keeping your designs to paper sketches and go straight to front-end development if the product already has a theme / layout / style defined.

• If you need to make wireframes pick a tool you are fast and familiar with. 95% should be ideas, 5% tool.

• Build prototypes to test out interactions without the expense and time of working with production code and going through the build and QA process.



• Testing with your customers is really important. Test out new features early and often.

• Regularly test flows and whole areas of your product to enhance your understanding of how people are using it and pin point problems they may be facing.


• Ensure shorter feedback loops on user research. Try to feedback top 5 to the team the next day.

• Block out enough time to analyse and digest research findings and observations to gain deeper customer insights.

• Ensure time is worked into the schedule for acting on user research findings.

• Try and become more intimate with the production process and understanding the materials you are working with.



“THE USER EXPERIENCE OF OUR PRODUCT IS NOT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF

ONE PERSON OR DEPARTMENT. WE ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE.”

Jo Packer, Songkick


Technology

Agile and UX do play nicely together