Designing the Right Product

Designing the
right product
Michele Ide-Smith, @micheleidesmith
Senior UX Architect
University of Cambridge
@micheleidesmith | #GOTOBer

A cautionary tale
• In 2002 I worked on a mobile (WAP)
application. Over several weeks…
– We discussed requirements
– I designed user flows and crafted wireframes
– We created a working prototype
– We did lots of internal testing

• Then we launched the product…


We may as well have
built one of these…

Photo by Steve Way:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/steve_way/3409302647/


We made a lot of assumptions


We didn’t validate our assumptions


We didn’t do any research with
customers


“Unfortunately, we again made the mistake
of focusing on engineering first and
customer development second…We
released our first version to some moderate
success and then proceeded to continue to
churn out features without really
understanding customer needs.”
Devver Blog – Lessons Learned

It’s tempting
to design a
product with
loads of really
cool features.

But in reality your
users will only use
a handful of useful
features


% Software features used
30

20
Used
Never used
Rarely used

50
Source: Standish Chaos Manifesto 2013

“ There is no doubt that focusing
on the 20% of the
features that give you 80% of the
value will maximize the investment
in software development and
improve overall user satisfaction.”
Standish Chaos Manifesto


An evolution of thinking…


Lean: deliver value to
customers, minimising
waste in the production
process

Photo by Toyota Material Handling
http://www.flickr.com/photos/toyotamheurope/8472007819


“There are no facts inside your
building, so get outside”
Steve Blank & Bob Dorf


“The question is not
“Can this product be
built?” Instead, the
questions are
"Should this product
be built? "”
Eric Ries


Principles of Lean Startup
• Eliminate uncertainty
• Work smarter, not harder
• Develop an MVP (Minimum
Viable Product)
• Validated learning


Ideas

Learn

Build

Data

Code

Measure


“Lean UX is the practice of
bringing the true nature of our
work to light faster, with less
emphasis on deliverables and
greater focus on the actual
experience being designed.”
Jeff Gothelf


Principles of Lean UX
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Cross-functional teams
Outcomes, not output
Continuous discovery
GOOB: user-centricity
Shared understanding
Externalising your work
Making over analysis
Getting out of the deliverables business

Design research
Competitor Analysis
Personas
Ideation

Reduce
cycle
time, not
build time

Think

Usability testing
A/B testing
Analytics

Check

Make

Hypothesis
Sketching
Prototyping
Coding


“Requirements are
assumptions.”
Jeff Gothelf


Some case studies…


“We wanted to make sure we were getting customer
feedback as we worked so that we were never working
on anything that wasn’t valued by the customer.”
Nordstrom Innovation Lab: Sunglasses iPad App
Photo by Prayitno
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34128007@N04/5279860498


Case Study #2


Hypothesis:
Oracle Developers & DBAs
need a better way to source
control their database schemas
>70% interest – develop a tool
a.s.a.p.
Photo by Paigggeyy
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paigggeyy/5533236567


25 feedback sessions
with users


Continual validation of assumptions
through surveys, interviews and testing

Get the team on the same page
• Why are we doing this?
• Who are building this for?
• How will we know if we have succeeded?


State your assumptions!
• Review your user stories or requirements
• Which ones do you know to be true?
• Which assumptions pose the biggest risk?


Create a one page plan

Put it up where everyone can see it!

“Design is problem solving.
Design research is problem seeking.”
Ac4d design library
Photo by Tom Ryan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/t0msk/3983980813


“To make excellent products that truly
understand our users’ contexts, we must
look further, and investigate context firsthand” Cennydd Bowles


How and where will people
use your application?

Photo by Phil Dragash
http://www.flickr.com/photos/philman/2697665803


Who are they with?

Photo by Jo Shlabotnik
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeshlabotnik/7364192792


Some research methods
• Observation & contextual interviews
– experience activities in context
– observe how people behave
– look for pain points and workarounds

• Surveys
• Guerilla usability tests
– 5 minutes in a coffee shop


Beware of asking people what they do,
or what they want.


Avoid questions like…
• Which of these features would be useful
to you?
• How would you like this to work?
• What would you most like to see in the
product?
• How do you think we should design this?


“What people say,
what people do,
and what they say
they do are
entirely different
things.”
Margaret Mead,
Cultural
Anthropologist

Ask questions like…
•
•
•
•
•
•

Tell me about the last time you did...
What went well? What didn’t go so well?
What happened?
Why was that?
What did you do?
Tell me more about that…


Get a shared understanding of user
needs and problems. Involve the whole
team in research!


Write the things you see or
hear on sticky notes.

Group similar sticky notes
together and discuss as a
team how you will solve
those problems for users.

You can’t design for
everyone. Personas
represent the main user
behaviours you are
designing for.


Experiment template by: www.luxr.co | @luxrco


“if the call-to-action button is
red then the number of people
registering will go up”

www.mindtheproduct.com/2012/08/experiments-101/


Make sure it’s easy to test!


Design studio: a lo-fi
method to generate
lots of ideas quickly,
then refine them.
51

Combine the best
ideas and start
prototyping

Paper prototyping: quick
and easy to change
before you commit to code
Easy to get feedback and quick to change

Get designs off the screen
and on the walls!

Validation
• Usability testing
• A/B (multi-variant / split) testing
• Analytics


Closing the feedback loop
• Get the whole team to observe and
analyse usability test sessions
• Make usability testing habitual


Summary
• Treat requirements as assumptions
• Get out of the building and observe
customers in context
• Build a shared understanding in the team
of customer problems
• Rapid think > make > check cycles
• Everyone in the team owns the user
experience of the product!

“Efficiency is
doing things
right;
effectiveness is
doing the right
thing”
Peter Drucker


Michele Ide-Smith
Senior User Experience Architect
University of Cambridge

@micheleidesmith
www.ide-smith.co.uk


References
Steve Blank and Bob Dorf, The Startup Owner’s Manual:
www.stevenblank.com/startup_index_qty.html
Eric Ries, Lean Startup:
http://theleanstartup.com
Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden, Lean UX Book / Hypothesis Template:
www.leanuxbook.com

Cennydd Bowles, Designing With Context:
www.cennydd.co.uk/2013/designing-with-context
Nordstrum Innovation Lab: Sunglass iPad App Case Study
www.youtube.com/watch?v=szr0ezLyQHY


References
Alexander Osterwalder, Business Model Canvas:
www.businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas
Ash Mayura, Lean Canvas:
http://leanstack.com/
Atlassian, Experience Canvas:
http://blogs.atlassian.com/2013/10/fight-the-dark-side-of-lean-uxwith-the-experience-canvas/
Luxr, Experiment Template:
www.luxr.co @luxrco

Designing the Right Product

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to Designing the Right Product

Similar to Designing the Right Product (20)

More from Michele Ide-Smith

More from Michele Ide-Smith (16)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Designing the Right Product