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Built To Learn
The Case For UX
Marty Cagan, Partner
About Me
The Silicon Valley Product Group was created to share senior level
experience and best practices with technology companies
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My Clients
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Topics
• What I Tell The CEO: The Case For UX
• What I Tell Product Managers: Why You Need UX
• What I Tell UX Teams: Creating Great Products
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The Case For UX
“Our Job is to Invent on
Behalf of the User”
Jeff Bezos
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Product Discovery
The job of product discovery
is to discover the minimum
viable product that solves the
customer’s problem
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Product Discovery Team
Product discovery is a collaboration:
– Product Owner
– User Experience Design
– Development
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The Case For UX
“Design is not just what it
looks like and feels like;
Design is how it works.”
Steve Jobs
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The Case For UX
Engineering is important and
difficult, but user experience
design is even more
important, and usually more
difficult
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The Case For UX
“Think in Leaps;
Iterate in Steps”
Chris Wetherell
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The Case For UX
“The Company Cares
About What the
Leaders Care About”
Bill Campbell
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User Experience Design
• Interaction Designers:
– Interaction Models: Information Architecture, Tasks, Wireframes
• Visual Designers:
– Emotional Response: Look & Feel, Comps
• Content:
– Emotional Response: Voice, Copy
• User Researchers:
– Qualitative: User Prototypes, User Testing
– Quantitative: Live-Data Prototypes, A/B Testing, Web Analytics
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The Power of Interaction Design
The Mental Model
- Products that “just work”
- Products where the value is clear and accessible
- No training or online-help required
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The Power of Visual Design
The Emotional Response
• Assuage fear
• Build trust
• Convince people to provide personal information they
otherwise would not
• Motivate users to reach out to their friends
• Persuade users to buy merchandise they wouldn’t
otherwise
• Make them actually enjoy their time on your site
• Love a product they would otherwise just like
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The Case For UX
Fail Fast
Make product discovery the core
competency of the product
organization
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Product Discovery Overview
– Identify product discovery team (PM, UX, ENG)
– Utilize ideation techniques as needed (vision, product
principles, personas, customer discovery)
– Quickly prototype ideas (user or live-data prototype)
– Validate prototype with customers (less than 2 weeks!)
– Review feasibility (and ideas) with engineering
– Demo and discuss prototype with stakeholders
– Iterate or pivot
– Continue until minimal viable product discovered, or you
decide it’s best to give up
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High-Fidelity Prototypes
Product Discovery
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The Case For UX
“Don’t Fall In Love”
“Mockups Lie”
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High-Fidelity Prototypes
Two Forms:
1. User Prototypes (Simulation)
2. Live-Data Prototypes (Real Code)
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User Prototypes
Benefits:
• Quick to create and easy to modify
• Doesn’t require development resources
Limitations:
• Qualitative testing only
• If tests successful, must still be built
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Live-Data Prototypes
Benefits:
• Statistically significant results
• Quick to deploy if performs well in A/B test
• Can also test via user testing
Limitations:
• Requires development resources
• Time to build may be significant
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User Prototypes vs. Live Data Prototypes
• With User Testing we learn why things don’t work
and what we can do to fix them
• With Live Data Testing we can prove that
something actually works
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High-Fidelity Prototypes
1. Enables you to quickly test ideas on target users
2. Forces you to think through product at a much deeper level
3. Provides the mechanism for collaboration between product
owner, design and engineering
4. Allows a more accurate cost estimate
5. Provides engineering and QA with a richer product definition
to work from
6. Enables the rest of the organization to understand the
product in time to actually prepare
7. Forces you to consider form and function together
8. Allows you to “fail fast”
9. Significantly reduces churn
10. Keeps the team focused on the user experience
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User Testing
Product Discovery
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User Testing
The Two Key Questions:
1. Could they use it?
2. Would they use it?
If not, what would it take to get them to use it?
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Pivots
• Change target customer
• Change problem to be solved
• Change solution approach
• Change business model
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Product Manager Required
• Always ensure Product Manager is present
• Product Manager observes during usability test but
drives during value test
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Key Points For UX
User Experience Design
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Key Points For UX
• Know Your Audience
• Be Sensitive To Change
• It’s About Customer Learning
• Time To Step Up
• Role Confusion
• Titles
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Top 10 Product Innovation Issues
1. Weak Product Management Function
2. Weak User Experience Function
3. Little Direct Customer Interaction
4. No Product Discovery Process
5. Stakeholder Driven Roadmap
6. Not Utilizing Engineering Early Enough
7. Lack of Holistic View / Whole Product Focus
8. Focus on Dates & Features not Business Results
9. Missing Rapid Test and Learn Product Culture
10. Missing Product Discovery Team Collaboration
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Learning More
cagan@svpg.com
www.svpg.com
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