eXtreme User eXperience (XUX) - How one team melded UX with XP
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How one team melded UX with XP. Our XP team have been developing a product in the spirit of start-up and are exploring how to get the best from UX expertise. The team developed personas and learnt how to use them to shape stories - even tagging cards with persona stickers and usability testing activities. Our team is very technical and potentially there could be clashes when it comes to creative thinking so we’ve tried “design chavettes” with team collectively, deputising them into the UX team. We regularly go beyond pairing with multi-disciplinary tripling! The whole team test and iterate on the product design as well as development. We embed our hand-drawn sketches directly into the product as placeholders for features, then implement basic versions adding polish as we go, reducing the distance barriers between users, stakeholders and developers. Lean StartUp embraces a more scientific perspective to learn what works but often teams leap too fast to solutions without user perspectives in mind: the idea of XUX helps put brakes on without squelching ideas and innovation!
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eXtreme User eXperience (XUX) - How one team melded UX with XP
- 1. X U X eXtreme User eXperience Mike Rawling @hedshot @Unrulymedia
- 2. How one team melded UX with XP Mike Rawling @hedshot @Unrulymedia
- 4. Engaging with UX Nurturing empathy What...with a pencil? Kinky! Making and keeping it real Finding stuff out Some other working practices
- 5. Mike Rawling Senior UX Engineer @Unruly Media, at London HQ Me UX engineering history dates back to 1998 Consulting, designing, engineering, leading, coaching, training…. Teams and initiatives for Tesco, Wiley, Camelot, Konami, LoveFilm and Granada and ITV Talking at Agile On The Beach 2013, UK
- 8. Unrulymedia.com About Unruly Media 3 development teams: - each consisting of about 4 XP, java-centric, stupidly intelligent programmers - team has greatly varying level of experience and interests - Extremely varied experience of customer facing front-end - 1 UX guy
- 9. Unruly Analytics provides the data that proves the ROI o Be inspired. Get real-time access to share of voice data for your video content across the social web. Identify trends and learn about what consumers are sharing. o See the bigger picture. Know the true social reach of your campaign by tracking official, unofficial and derivative copies across social media platforms. o Prove it works. Measure your Social ROI against historical brand performance and benchmarked competitors.
- 10. Unruly Analytics And the real project challanges… - Offer insight into social media performance - Teach about social media and video - and visual analytics! User base has a *great* variety of users with Equally varied understanding of statistical analysis …To do so elegantly!
- 11. The team And the real project goals… Committed to XP principles Adventurous spirit The CEO said: „Do Lean Start-up‟ I heard „Try Lean UX‟
- 12. engaging with ux
- 13. challenges engaging with ux There are Classic challenges of UX and Agile and some particular to XP: Differences between agile and UCD Agile accentuates acceptance and unit testing – where does usability testing fit in XP criticised for „being light on user side of software‟ and „best used with non-GUI intensive applications‟ Lacking explicit processes defining requirements engineering, interaction design,
- 14. our dev area Unruly Media
- 15. the ux wall engaging with ux
- 16. doing tech talks & education engaging with ux
- 17. engaging more closely with testing engaging with ux
- 18. User interview scripts for anyone to use engaging with ux
- 19. posters and evangelism engaging with ux
- 20. What works? Hard to say… engaging with ux Ongoing? The work continues… - tricky to identify and measure success criteria? - There is much discussion about UX now - The CEO refers to personae in slide shows! - Even creeping into team members LinkedIn CVs… - Conclusion: some momentum is there “CEO refers to customer related stuff using „personae‟ now!”
- 22. Challenges: creating a bridge between team and users nurturing empathy
- 23. Do I choose personas? Abso-f-lutely! nurturing empathy
- 26. Persona-centric / named stories nurturing empathy
- 28. „You want me to do what with a pencil?‟ Visualising interfaces
- 30. I can‟t draw? Visualising interfaces Programmer…: “I can‟t draw – let alone „design‟!” “design is fluffy!” “designers don‟t know sh*t” “I‟m not a designer” “wtf?” Later… “…but that‟s not the best design” “..I won‟t do it like that…” “that‟s just too wacky/unusable/unusual/custom/etc…” “I could do better…” “I can‟t draw”
- 31. I can‟t draw? Visualising interfaces
- 32. Enter: Design Charrettes!! Visualising interfaces alleged, regular critiques at an art academy in Paris – possibly Beaux arts About regular „critiques‟ Students race to finish… Useful urgency!
- 33. Design Charrettes… Visualising interfaces Select an Epic feature to attack Select an Persona Then… ..as Pairs we… ideate key features that persona might need and want gather and share – pick top results then pairs pick a favorite ideas and sketch 5 UI ideas for them in 5 minutes gather and share – pick our favorite sketches then pairs pick a favorite sketch and sketch a complete UI or wider flow The whole group chooses result!
- 34. Design charrettes ideas and features stage: Visualising interfaces
- 35. Design charrettes ensue Visualising interfaces
- 36. Design charrettes ensue: really nice result product design
- 37. A real storyboarding…board Visualising interfaces
- 38. New technique: physical user flows Visualising interfaces
- 39. Physical user flows Visualising interfaces
- 40. making and keeping it real: prototypes
- 41. And keeping it real… Making it real “Prototyping – where the wheels touch down on the tarmac”
- 42. Lots of sketching > prototyping? Making it real
- 43. SuperLoRes Prototyping Making it real
- 44. Functional prototypes Making it real
- 45. Good, bad, ugly of this approach… Making it real
- 46. Finding stuff out: research
- 47. challenges research I can‟t research all possible (agile) futures Fast turn around times! I really don‟t want to hold anyone up B2B context quite challenging
- 48. Fast surveys and feedback – Olark and Qualaroo research
- 49. Remote, unmoderated user testing tools research
- 50. research
- 54. Super-huddles, Pairing and even Tripling working practices + + + + + +
- 55. UX & CEO (project sponsor) pairing working practices + +
- 56. UI Squad: UX, Sponsor and Product Manager working practices + +
- 57. So! What next???
- 58. Never stop refining – find what works for you What next??
- 59. *Really* magnetic personas! Stickygram.com What next??
- 61. The Weekly Google Analyst What next??
- 63. MemberVideo Council Whitelisted Q&A Winner Best Content Distribution Service Any questions?
- 64. MemberVideo Council Whitelisted Thanks for listening! Still hungry? Contact me… Winner Best Content Distribution Service Michael.rawling@unrulymedia.com @hedshot
Editor's Notes
- Welcome! Welcome!
- This is a modest presentation of some ideas, techniques and tools we made our own….
- I love to answer your questions as we gobut would talk about some topics which may well answer you query…but if not there will be time at the end
- Here’s a list of topics I’ll be covering to explain how we did it
- Experience in UX engineering dates back to 1998I’ve always tried explore ways of more effectively realising the massive potential that software has and that each product starts with. I’ve consulted on, designed, engineered and led teams and initiatives for Tesco, Wiley, Camelot, Konami, LoveFilm and Granada TV and is currently confirmed to talk at Agile On The Beach, UK
- Unruly is a video technology company that works with top brands and their agencies to predict the emotional impact of their videos and get them watched, tracked and shared across paid, owned and earned media. We use our proprietary technology to turn target audiences into engaged viewers and engaged viewers into customers and advocates. In a nutshell, brands use Unruly to join the dots on Facebook, YouTube and the social web.
- - 4 years ago - 4 people- today - About 150
- About 150 staff, including a design team of 4/5 and a development team with 3 teams of about 4 XP, Java-centric programmers with less through to medium and experience of customer facing front-end. The team composition has changed over time but we have a team of approximately 5 XP java centric programmers with a new Product manager and a technical development team leader based in LondonOur stakeholder, what we called our Sponsor, was our CEO who was extremely engaged with the project but travelled a lot between London and New York - which is somewhat challenging
- So – here the blurb we tell our customers…this product benchmarks social media video performance for the top 100 brands
- - Offer insight into social media performance- Teach about social media and video - and visual analyticsUser base has a *great* variety of users with Equally varied understanding of statistical analysis…To do so elegantly!
- - Offer insight into social media performance- Teach about social media and video - and visual analyticsUser base has a *great* variety of users with Equally varied understanding of statistical analysis…To do so elegantly!
- General thingsWhere does UX fit on kanban/lean boards??Iteration – designing ahead? Iteration -1???As the theme of todays session goes…..read xp/agile issues. What we can to do today is far richer than - Substantial differences exist between agile and UCD approaches which pose challenges to integration attempts.- Although agile methods accentuate testing, and XP involves acceptance and unit testing – and there is an absence of supportive practices for direct support of usability testing- Practices for evaluating systems developed via agile processes for usability and user experience are historically absentXPhas been criticized for being light on the user side of software and apparently is better used with non GUI intensive applicationsRequirements engineering as an activity within XP was not explicitly definedXP has no explicit process for dealing with interaction design
- It’s an open plan environment with no walls and lots of white boards and walls that we can post which we can stick printouts of competitior UIs, inspiring designs, information graphics and so forth
- It’s an open plan environment with no walls and lots of white boards and walls that we can post which we can stick printouts of competitior UIs, inspiring designs, information graphics and so forth
- Used tech lightning talks as opportunities for education and increase awareness of UX concerns
- Here I put an A3 sheet below the wall to serve as a place for the team to post questions – these would go straight into the testing scripts, interview scriptsUnderstanding testing by actually taking part – extending a common practice of bringing your employers, team and more behind the observation side of a one way mirror
- Here I put an A3 sheet below the wall to serve as a place for the team to post questions – these would go straight into the testing scripts, interview scripts or
- Copy from FNAs + Intel presentation on Analytics
- This is anon going activity. It’s one of the harder aspects to judge in an organisation, I findOne metric might be number of conversations about UX outside of projects? Certainly the CEO has started saying things about and his newly created favourite word last month was Personae….used in presentations quite a few times…
- Getting the message from users to the team One key challenge to the process is how best and most efficiently to communicate a users requests and underlying needs into the stories and to developers who are making dozens of decisions a day to get closer to what is needed in the interface? It seems clear that building empathy and instilling the spirit of users’ needs and most tricky – their perspective on things.
- 4 workshops over several months – each one evolved the personas from a previous edition and then were updated – started with a session *not* including executives or directors or seniors: these members can have a reality warping effect on how people behave –- User interviews – interviewing users in our target markets not just to gather requirements and validate specific issues but also to validate Personas!
- 4 workshops over several months – each one evolved the personas from a previous edition and then were updated – started with a session *not* including executives or directors or seniors: these members can have a reality warping effect on how people behave –- User interviews – interviewing users in our target markets not just to gather requirements and validate specific issues but also to validate Personas!
- I printed them out as big as I cold get them, as early as I could in the project, and placed them in a very central location.
- Story card stickersStories are titledGet new picture of stickers
- Story card stickersStories are titledGet new picture of stickers
- Quick referenceCall to action guidelinesAscreen in the applicationthat demonstrates the actual controls
- I can’t draw???Very interested in idea of UX coach which seems to naturally fit with my recent Successful techniques
- There’s a simplesecret in interaction design sketching that:If you can draw a circle, square, triangle (and a cross, I suppose) then you can draft some kind of interfaceIn the true spirit of our hand-s on approach I followed this to one logical conclusion with the help of a colleague called John Innes…
- A technique we used to facilitate collaborative design as a team. - ux’r from san fran - Jon Innes.These are based on the alledged, regular critiques at the Beau Arts Academy in Paris. The story goes that before each critique, a trolley was brought round the art studios to collect the art students work. Students, being what they are, would not quite have finished and sometimes be rushing to finish, and at the last minute would toss their offering on the trolley.
- - Start by recapping on our personas Using an Epic feature follow a sequence:As Pairs or small groups we :- ideate key features that persona might need and want document on post-itsgather and share – pick top ideas pairs pick their favorite and sketch 5 UI ideas for them in 5 minutes gathers together and picks their favorite idea or emergent idea theme then for 10 minutes groups once again sketch a complete idea separatelyThe whole group chooses best!
- Example from the first stage
- Examples from the last stages
- Success!!!
- last year in a london back streetrobbiewilliams was filing a music videoReally broken outLess experience with UX storyboards But my understanding Represented much wider general scenarios
- User flow storycards----------------------------Sometimes devs. were quite quite suspicious Pair on the original idea using familiar tools – cards and some decent sketching pens – sharpies can be usedThen I up the resolution slightly and think through detail in the cards.Stages are easily replacable, or even some can be dropped or tuned in the middle of a story if it’s looks like it’s not MVP enough or too much just to solve the idea.Can easily be broken out into stories – we’ve found some sequences where each cards matches directly to a storySo they almost become like physical user flows, rather than storyboards which in my experience are more like a visual scenario all on one single deliverable.
- User flow storycards----------------------------Sometimes programmers. were quite quite suspicious of UX artifactsPair on the original idea using familiar tools – cards and some decent sketching pens – sharpies can be usedThen I up the resolution slightly and think through detail in the cards.Stages are easily replacable, or even some can be dropped or tuned in the middle of a story if it’s looks like it’s not MVP enough or too much just to solve the idea.Can easily be broken out into stories – we’ve found some sequences where each cards matches directly to a storySo they almost become like physical user flows, rather than storyboards which in my experience are more like a visual scenario all on one single deliverable.
- Why do prototypes? I wanted to show things in the easiest but most involving way and I wanted to test some more complex interactions that could not be adequately tested in paper.Sponsor and many stakeholdershas trouble truly understanding ideas, concepts or flows without actually seeing and using themPM helped
- We were building up lots of sketchesWhat to do with them?
- These were great:QuickDirectEngaging for whole teamDid I mention quick?TestableCould build out the whole experience
- So – what were the issues with this approach mainly?- Mixing prod and prototypeCodewiseFor stakeholderFor usability test participants
- I can’t research all possible futuresFast turn around times!I really don’t want to hold anyone upB2B context quite challenging
- The response rate for the horrid old fashioned surveys is terrible – I really like these new techniques…although they maybe too subtle and too easy to dismiss – still experimementing
- add a screen grab of the demographic selection
- Copy from FNAs + Intel presentation on Analytics
- Classic XP originally excluded other disciplines and advocated pairing We brought in UX and the product sponsor much closer by actually pairing together
- Humour extremely important – creating products (services) is one of the hardest things in the world and very exciting but can be a little stressful when the team is new, the deadlines are tight and the product is undefinedPics of nerf gunsBeer
- Copy from FNAs + Intel presentation on Analytics
- UI squad OK for a short periodReally really productive working and whiteboarding directly with the CEO and project sponsor – who is very open minded and a very creative guy in his own right
- Stickygrams are magnetic cards made from pictures you post on the photo sharing site, instagram. I’ve sent off for them and we will be using these on out magnetics whiteboards
- Copy from FNAs + Intel presentation on Analytics
- We have found some UX concepts a struggle for some developers to take on board – particularly qualitative research and analysis of results to draw actionable conclusions, despite being extremely willing to offer their opinions after a piece of research has gone on.What is it?One team member takes the role of ‘Google Analyst’ for ½ an iteration. We pair on an activity to analyse the results in Google Analytics but with the programmer ‘driving’ with as little intervention from me as possible. So far this has been really successful - the developer really got into it