Lean UX and other forms of UX all have the same goal in mind; delivering a great user experience it’s just that the way you work on a project is slightly different. So let’s take a look at how that might work. Lean UX is an incredibly useful technique when working on projects where the Agile development method is used.
Lean UX
What is It?
- Focused on the experience under design and less focused on deliverables than traditional UX
- The objective is to focus on obtaining feedback as early as possible so that it can be used to make quick decisions
- Agile development is to work in rapid, iterative cycles to ensure that data generated is used in each iteration
The Minimum Viable Product and Lean UX
The idea is to build the most basic version of the concept as possible, test it, and if there are no valuable results to abandon it
- MVPs which show promise can then be incorporated into further design and development rounds without too much hassle
User Research and Testing in Lean UX
The approach tends to be “quick and dirty” – results need to be delivered before the next Agile Sprint starts
- There’s less focus on heavy-duty document outputs and more focus on raw data
- Responsibilities for research are spread more widely across the whole team so there’s no “bottleneck” created by having a single UX design resource trying to get the whole job done in tight timescales
The Need for Assumptions in Lean UX
In traditional UX, the objective is to ensure that deliverables are as detailed as possible and respond adequately to the requirements laid down at the start of the project.
- Lean UX is slightly different. You are looking to produce changes that improve the product in the here and now to mold the outcome for the better.
Summary
The basic concepts of Lean UX should enable you to start heading in the right direction when it comes to implementing Lean UX in an Agile environment
Creating a Hypothesis in Lean UX
A simple format that you can use to create your own hypotheses
- State the belief and why it is important
- Follow that with what you expect to achieve
- Determine what evidence you would need to collect to prove your hypothesis
- If no evidence, drop the idea and try something else
