Principles, Vision & Hypothesis in Lean UX
How this methodology can solve problems and fuel innovation in your company
Lean UX was born out from Toyota’s manufacturing model. The innovation not only helped the japanese company improve its relationship with the customers, but it also improved the production process. It basically allowed them to have shorter production cycles by adding feedback from users on each one of those cycles. This resulted in an improvement of the company’s ability to respond to change.
While User Experience (UX) design has been around for quite a few years, it’s the advent and mixing of other methodologies what has created a mindset that can help companies improve products and user experience.
At its core, UX uses Human-Computer interaction design, but it also aims to extend it while embracing all aspects of product or service from the viewpoint of users. Lean UX is the process of explaining user behaviour with usability, usefulness and desirability in mind.
The development of Agile methodologies and Lean Startup make it possible to use a wide variety of tools in product design to improve user experience frameworks. What we basically pursue with Lean UX is blending the interaction design techniques with the scientific method to create beautiful and easy-to-use products, but also products that are measurably successful.
“If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong.”
-Richard Feynman
What’s Lean UX
Lean UX is a management method, but it’s also a process and a mindset. We aim to reduce waste from simple UX design processes, refocus software development to value, harmonize a structure of various roles that are present in all companies and perform an approach to problem solving, but above all, we are interested in shifting to a model based on experimentation.
One of the foundations of Lean UX is design thinking; allowing to use design methods to those unaccustomed to their intricacies, although that’s only a part. We also need to directly observe what people want and need, without forgetting what is technologically feasible. Agile methodologies fit perfectly in this mindset, but allowing freedom is also a must. “Build-measure-learn” is the motto, with special attention to customer communication (increasing the frequency of contact, for example). Perhaps the most important point to make is that in Lean UX, each design must be thought of as a hypothesis.
Principles
The situation is this; most companies don’t know how to grow. They fail. Some die trying. We see it constantly. This is not a problem of designers, developers or any other specific roles. The problem is the systems we use to build companies. The shift needed to embrace Lean UX techniques can be summarized in many ways, but here are a few worth mentioning:
1) From output to outcomes
There needs to be a stop in how success is usually measured, because it’s meaningless, at least most of the time. Stop thinking about features completed and start thinking in terms of progress towards outcomes. Experiments should be acknowledged at every step, forgetting previous roadmaps. Hypotheses (designs, that is) must be built on three points; risk, feasibility and potential success.
2) From limited roles to collaborative capabilities
Roles in a team don’t need to be discrete. Think of them as a continuous function. Competencies and skills are above roles. Silos, whatever their kind, are inefficient. Collaborate with your team, and make sure the team has the tools to collaborate.
3) Small, cross-functional teams
Interaction amongst product managers, developers, QA engineers, designers or marketers should be on the same level, and no single discipline should dictate the others. Breaking down discipline-based boundaries creates cohesive teams and opens creative possibilities. This should be done in small teams working on smaller problems, making the effort more efficient.
4) Third party
Whether it’s software building or data projects, these enterprises necessitate iterative learning to thrive. That learning process means change. Initial plans will change, often unexpectedly, so you need to be ready for that change. Third party solutions can help in this dynamic. Plan for change, and structure third party resources around it.
5) Problem solving
The Lean UX approach brings a lot of change; be prepared. In the process of designing, the ability to think fast is extremely important. Build a shared understanding in the team to minimize execution time.
6) Aesthetics
Ideas and processes must be edited down to the core. Working quickly creates many artifacts, and these artifacts are a transient part of the project. Get it done, get it out there, discuss, move on. The effort at the visual refinement stage should be done at the end, not before.
“Get it done, get it out there, discuss, move on.”
7) Embrace UX debt
There needs to be a strong commitment to continuous improvement. This UX debt should be treated as technical teams treat technical debt. Capture the gap and analyze where the experience is today and where you want it to be tomorrow.
8) Manage up and out
Stepping away from the roadmap mindset also means giving freedom to pursue effective solutions, but this freedom comes with the responsibility of communicating effectively that agenda. Reach out to members of the team, including those who aren’t involved in your work, make sure they are aware of what’s going on.
Vision, Framing, Outcomes
While the principles of Lean UX may be thought of differently, the main idea here is to treat hypotheses as a starting point, a way to express assumptions in a testable form. Remember the goal is not to just create a deliverable, but to create an outcome.
In practice, this can be achieved following these steps:
- Declare assumptions. Listen to everyone’s ideas, let them be expressed. Then, go through a ruthless priorization.
- Hypotheses statements. Break down hypotheses into smaller parts, and test the assumptions. Settle benchmarks and keep in mind; it’s outcomes what we are pursuing.
- Personas. Work on simple models representing users, profiles. Build a template and think about who is that person, what will she/he need, what are the pain points, and how can your product help.
- Features. Once a list of outcomes is set and the team is focused in a group of users, it’s time to think about the features. Start a brainstorming process.
“Remember the goal is not to just create a deliverable, but to create an outcome.”
Collaborative Design
The design studio phase should encourage informal meetings and sessions. Here, we should break down organizational silos and forum. A way to achieve this is starting meetings with a problem definition intro, then individual idea generation, presentation and critique where all team members have a say. This should be constructive, up to the point of iterating ideas and counter-arguments. Then it’s time for the team idea generation, the fruit of all the effort.
“This should be constructive, up to the point of iterating ideas and counter-arguments.”
MVPs and Experiments
Creating an MVP is the next step. An MVP is the smallest thing we can create to learn if a hypothesis is valid. Is there a need for the solution we are designing? Is there value in the features? Is the solution usable? These questions are all that matters in this phase. But be clear, concise. Measure behaviour, be functional and integrate with existing analytics. Be consistent with the rest of the application, and build the smallest MVP possible.
Prototyping, approximating the UX to allow simulating the usage, is next. Specify the intended audience and focus on the core workflows that illustrate the MVP. This can be worked on with clickable demos and previews for teammates.
“An MVP is the smallest thing we can create to learn if a hypothesis is valid.”
Feedback and Research
The aim of this whole process is to be able to begin a validation process. Collaborative design techniques build shared understanding, but this last step is where all should end up. Informal qualitative research studies are welcome in every iteration, as continuous research is what we’re interested in. Which artifacts to test? What results to expect? Here’s where A/B testing comes in. We also need to listen to the voice of the customer.
Build research activities into every sprint, and don’t rely only on specialized work to deliver learning. Research activities and responsibilities should at this point be shared across the entire team. Remember this is a team effort to test ideas in the market. Review and decide as a team. Mix smaller teams’ roles into pairs and make them work on a version of the MVP. Conduct interviews and change roles, it’s surprising how many new ideas can come up by embracing this dynamic.
“The aim of this whole process is to be able to begin a validation process. Collaborative design techniques build shared understanding, but this last step is where all should end up.”
Lastly, you need to make sense of the research. Look for patterns, verify with other sources and test everything.
___________________________________________________________________
For those of us steeped in traditional management techniques, this new way of working can seem a little disorienting, but what we mainly intend with these summarized techniques is to learn as soon as possible what’s needed to improve user experience. For this to work, we need to be close to our potential customers, learn from them and improve the product. Some of the great advantages of Lean UX include minimizing the risk of the projects, being certain of their duration, building up cohesive teams and measure their success objectively.
Sources:
- Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience, by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden
- The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald A. Norman
- Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design, by Bill Buxton
