Lean UX Secrets: 5 UX Hacks to Build Better Experiences, Faster

Editor's Notes

• #3: I want to tell you a story about the first UX project I ever worked on, back when I was a UX virgin. It was over a decade ago. And it lasted a full year. This was my first foray into traditional usability testing, and I was taught to approach it with scientific precision.
• #4: Customer Segments: We analyzed customer segments, and identified and recruited a ton of users in each of those segments. Statistically Significant: We made sure to select a statistically significant number of participants from each group so that we could report our findings with scientific precision – confidence intervals and margins of error. I was doing t-tests and z-tests to find out which recommendations should go in Phase I versus Phase 2. I remember bringing my old college statistics textbook to work with me.
• #5: We conducted our research in a lab with a two-way mirror. We filmed the test participants and actually went back and watched the tests multiple times, scrutinizing facial expressions and body language.
• #6: By the end of the year, we had a big honkin report. There were over 100 findings. We actually had tables to group and categorize all of the findings.   It was in a binder like this. With a cover page slaved over by a graphic designer.   This was my first UX job, and at the time I was so proud of this report. It was massive. It showed off all the hard work we did.   It took over 2 hours to read through with the client.
• #7: And want to hear the best part?   Over 10 years later, their website is largely the same. Only 2-3 recommendations had been implemented out of 100+ and those were pretty much low hanging fruit.
• #8: This process stole a year of my life. Countless billable hours, your taxpayer dollars. Painstaking work, meetings, and statistical nonsense.   Now, I’m seeing some looks of recognition here. You’re familiar with the heartbreak, I see? Well, here’s a secret…
• #9: We are in a perpetual state of phase I. If it’s not important enough to make an impact now, what makes us think that it will make some sort of an impact later?
• #10: Now fast forward 11 years. Over a decade later, this organization re-engaged us. Some of the very same clients, actually. But this time, our process was lean. In under a month, we had a substantially better product. With far less work and hassle – and pretty fast approvals, considering that it was a government site. Not only that, we had walked our clients through a chartering exercise and in 2 hours they had built and agreed on a vision – one that they had been dancing around for a decade. It left me thinking… Why can’t it always be like this?   Now this is not the first time I’ve asked myself this question. In fact, I’ve spent my career trying to make UX as simple and effective as possible. 5 years ago, Linna Ferguson and I coined the term “Express Usability” at a UXPA conference in Munich, where we convinced a whole bunch of people to implement UX strategies in just 1 week with a fixed price menu approach, an idea that came to us after drinking heavily at a fixed price restaurant.  
• #11: 5 years ago, Linna and I coined the term “Express Usability” at a UXPA conference in Munich, where we convinced a whole bunch of people to implement UX strategies in just 1 week with a fixed price menu approach, an idea that came to us after drinking heavily at a fixed price restaurant. After that, Lean UX caught fire. And with enthusiasm and passion, people were trying it out – and finding that it really works.   But the problem is that unless you spend hours reading and analyzing techniques from a big fat book, most of the advice that’s out there is pretty vague. And the words “Agile” and “Lean” have become almost cliché in our industry.    
• #12: Yes, heavy drinking made us lean before lean was a thing.
• #13: So today I’m going to share with you a my top UX Hacks. These are things work for my team of UX-ers. They are techniques and tricks that we’ve adapted from Lean UX, Lean Startup, Agile, Design Thinking, and all those other methods de jour.
• #14: So how many of you can relate to long, drawn out meetings about your website? Decisions by committee? Pie charts that supposedly tell you what your users need? Leaving meetings with no real plan of action? If any of this is familiar… Play Mad Libs Now what do I mean by that?
• #16: I like to start with creative working sessions, where you invite stakeholders and executives to come to a session in person, no dial-in number, no phones/computers, no multitasking. Just pure attention and participation. Who’s played mad libs as a kid? Invite participants to shout out words while you write on sticky notes, or kickstart activity with 30 seconds to scribble as many notes as possible. Stick to the wall, read and discuss. Stakeholders may ask, “Is this what we are now, or what we want to be in the future?” In this case, play two rounds of the game. Side-by-side results allow you to visualize UX work cut out for you.   Surprising results: When done right, this can rally stakeholders around a single goal in a matter of minutes – even those with wildly different ideas of what the company should be. Also helpful for uncovering descriptive vocabulary: when we worked with a high-end wealth management firm, they ended up agreeing that “Sherpa” was what they wanted to be as an organization. They wanted their customers to see the company as taking a load off – carrying the heavy bags of tax-efficient investing so that wealthy clients could enjoy the view without worrying about their money. A far cry from the typical responses of “wealth manager” and “financial advisor.”
• #17: Get all the
• #18: Get all the
• #19: Get all the
• #20: You can use different techniques with each category. Write out the vision statement at the end. It will not be in beautiful prose, but it sure will be powerful. Everyone has participated in creating this straw man to build from… in the course of an hour! This is a straw man. If you asked people to sit down and come up with a vision statement, they’d be staring at a blank paper for hours.
• #21: You can use different techniques with each category. Write out the vision statement at the end. It will not be in beautiful prose, but it sure will be powerful. Everyone has participated in creating this straw man to build from… in the course of an hour! This is a straw man. If you asked people to sit down and come up with a vision statement, they’d be staring at a blank paper for hours.
• #22: From my perspective, the key difference between Lean UX and the traditional UX is the idea that as UX professionals, we are NO LONGER just advocates for the user. We must work to understand and define the business and product vision too.    If we go to users and they tell us that they need bicycles. But the goal of the company is to sell unicycles, if we don’t take that into account, we’re going to be fighting executives every step of the way, and our recommendations will never be implemented. In order to be more successful, faster, we need to find that sweet spot between where business goals and user needs intersect. That’s where we make recommendations! Even better if we can understand what’s technically feasible as well, so we can only recommend things that the development team will be able to do actually do.  
• #23: Ever get requirements that don’t quite resonate with users? Especially from maybe a CEO or higher up that people don’t want to correct?
• #24: Bill is 42 years old. He lives in North Carolina. He carries his tablet with him wherever he goes. He loves to grill, and his favorite app is the Monterey bay aquarium’s seafood watch. He has 2 teenage daughters and even though he’s divorced and only sees them on the weekends, he’s always trying to help them be prepared too, sharing knowledge with them, etc. He was extremely instrumental in creating FirstResponders.gov. He’s also 100% fictional. A persona translates customer research, all that we know about out users, into a fictional character. So why would we spend the time to do this? It is much easier for us as HUMANS to relate to other humans. So when we put a face, a name, likes and dislikes to a ‘person’, we can better empathize and understand them. They help make our teams understand what drives our customers so that we can make targeted business decisions, driven by real people.
• #25: Bill is 42 years old. He lives in North Carolina. He carries his tablet with him wherever he goes. He loves to grill, and his favorite app is the Monterey bay aquarium’s seafood watch. He has 2 teenage daughters and even though he’s divorced and only sees them on the weekends, he’s always trying to help them be prepared too, sharing knowledge with them, etc. He was extremely instrumental in creating FirstResponders.gov. He’s also 100% fictional. A persona translates customer research, all that we know about out users, into a fictional character. So why would we spend the time to do this? It is much easier for us as HUMANS to relate to other humans. So when we put a face, a name, likes and dislikes to a ‘person’, we can better empathize and understand them. They help make our teams understand what drives our customers so that we can make targeted business decisions, driven by real people.
• #26: You can do this with a group of people in a working session. You can give a post-it from the mad libs activity to each individual or small group, and have them fill out that template. After that, have them all post them to the wall and share their story of this user. Here’s an example of how one of these came to life in one of our working sessions…. You can then use wall voting again if you want to narrow down the top personas, or maybe even identify personas that aren’t written.
• #28: Personas have long been used in the UX field. We have come up with a few unique spins on how to use this tool. Type of usability testing where clients role play (regulations.gov story) Provide partially created persona (VALU story)
• #29: Personas have long been used in the UX field. We have come up with a few unique spins on how to use this tool. Type of usability testing where clients role play (regulations.gov story) Provide partially created persona (VALU story)
• #32: There’s nothing worse than wasting your valuable time with users to validate some basic best practice.
• #36: Journey mapping doesn’t have to be complicated.
• #37: Journey maps follow a user’s steps to document experience. Helps you step into the shoes of your customer….. It can depict a user’s ideal journey or an actual journey. Documenting your user’s current reality can give you insights into how they make decisions. Use this tool when it is necessary to understand how a user comes to make a decision. It may give you a new hypothesis of what is driving user behavior. Can you find any unmet user needs that you weren’t aware of? One more….we use this when we hire new staff. We have them create a journey map that shows their highs and lows through a phase of their life. It helps uncover details that you wouldn’t normally find on a resume or in a typical conversation.
• #38: Retracing a user’s journey (online or not) helps us streamline their process.
• #39: So today I’m going to share with you a my top UX Hacks. These are things work for my team of UX-ers. They are techniques and tricks that we’ve adapted from Lean UX, Lean Startup, Agile, Design Thinking, and all those other methods de jour.
• #40: Scientific precision is overrated. A little push here, pull there.
• #41: So go forth and…