This document discusses the challenges and lessons learned from a UX designer's experience working on a remote team to develop an MVP within a 60 day deadline. It describes how the designer initially planned to follow agile and lean methodologies but found they did not work well. Through collaborating with the team by sharing ideas and prototypes, they were able to quickly create concepts and a functional prototype. This unexpected process led to positive feedback, new customers, and transformed the company culture into one focused on empathy.

1. Sean Fallon
seanfallon.web@gmail.com
@SeanFathom

2. UX Journey
There and Back, again

4. Obstacles and Surprises

5. • UX isn’t being done “the right
way”. Where’s the user
research?
My product manager and/or team
doesn’t understand UX.
What do you mean the deadline is
tomorrow?!

6. BUT WAIT! There’s
more!

7. • Yeah, but there’s a reason why
the filter is supposed to filter.
• No. Why would our customers
want to automatically buy this
without them confirming they
want it?
• A journey map is important,
that’s why I’m working through
lunch.

8. We know what needs to
be done for our
customers and their user
experience.

9. so we go ahead and explain
user experience to the
product teams, and set
expectations of what needs to
happen in steps moving
forward.

10. We end up looking like this
instead

11. Then we receive their feedback, and
feel like this.

12. how do we not
feel like that?”
“so…

13. The is to be adaptive
and empathetic

14. “Sean, I’ve heard
this before…”

15. “But ok. I’ll bite.”

16. “How do I be
adaptive and
empathetic?”

17. Empathy is seeing
with the eyes of
another, listening
with the ears of
another, and feeling
with the heart of
another.

18. Once you understand the
human to human
experience, how that
person really feels, then
you can adapt…

19. Although, you have to adapt
empathetically in more
ways than just feeling…

21. You need to adapt
through your process
too.

22. • AGILE
Waterfall
Six Sigma
LEAN

23. None of these are 100% correct,
nor will they get you to where you
need to go 100% of the time. If
anything, they’re guidelines. What
is needed is a base foundation

24. The base foundation
MVP + Iterate

25. UX is the product.

26. Let’s think about
this for a few
minutes.

28. Why not start with Paper
Prototyping?

29. “We’ve all done
paper prototypes in
the past…”

30. “…They’ve made
us feel, well..”

31. “…like this”

32. Alright…what about
a real prototype
using software or
code?

33. “WHOA. NO.”

34. “We can’t skip wire
frames, white boarding,
and journey mapping.
What about the analysis?!
What about sketching?!”

35. “We are UX!”

36. “We ALWAYS perform some
kind of analysis first.
ALWAYS. We need to
understand our users first.”

37. “Card sorting, mind mapping,
journey mapping, creating
personas, Emotion maps,
user feedback maps. You
name it!”

38. What if I told you that you could
jump straight into a real working
prototype with out having to
perform analysis, and know
exactly what you’re building?

39. “I’d say you’re crazy. But
what about scope? You still
have to collect requirements
and scope out the product.”

40. Definitely. A scope and
requirements are
important.

41. … But instead of defining
the project first, why not
define the user need first,
and then rapidly create a
MVP from there?

42. You could easily have the
developers and business teams
sit with you and design with you.

43. As you’re prototyping, you
could have the developer draw
an idea on the white board.

44. “Interesting. But what if I
would rather be white
boarding than
prototyping?”

45. That’s fine, you could even
assign roles before you start
iterating on the MVP with your
team of specialists.

46. “Roles, what do you
mean by roles?”

47. “I’m the designer,
what I say goes. I’m
the UX expert, not
them. That’s my role.”

48. Yes, you are the User
Experience expert.

49. …and in knowing that…

50. They may be the code expert, the
business expert, the operations
and process expert, the project
management expert.

51. But it doesn’t mean you don’t
understand management,
business, code, or process.

52. Our roles are a two way street

53. “How?”

54. Because we are all
human beings

55. …Why Can’t the developer
white board, the business
guy come up with a good
design idea and maybe a
coding solution….

56. ….Why not you, as
UX, decide to help
plan a business road
map?

57. When we look at a process, we
as UX experts should not be
thinking only of our process, and
our rules that fit within our own
vision when trying to drive
execution of a project.

58. • We should understand the end goal of the MVP
The affect it will have on our user base
The Journey getting there
Which helps us understand each others languages
Makes us both adaptive and empathetic every step of the
way.

59. It’s about creating a
MVP and Iterating on
that MVP until you’ve
reached the goal set.

60. Sometimes iterations
aren’t fast and could
take months.

63. Sometimes you only have a clear picture
of one piece of the puzzle, and maybe

64. … which can help lead you into finding
the other detailed pieces when iterating
on it and collecting feedback.

65. Who knows, maybe it turns into

66. The Journey is always changing in the
most unexpected ways

67. Knowing this, there
are pieces that will
always remain the
same throughout
your iterations.

68. Things that will always be the same
when iterating over a MVP
• Living and Breathing designs, documents, and
prototypes
• Story Telling
• Empathy
• Discovery
• Receiving Stakeholder and User Feedback
• Your Expertise

69. “Alright, so what about the
MVP end goal and the
user need? Those would
stay the same too, right?”

70. Not always.

71. Sometimes user needs
change. Which means
the MVP end goal
changes.

72. Which means you change,
your team changes, your
process changes, your roles
might even change a little bit.

73. You are forced to become adaptive,
and when you adapt, you
automatically become empathetic
because you’re already thinking
about the users new need.

75. This is why the users
need should drive the
MVP, and drive the team.

76. Which then in turn drives
the business decisions.

77. The journey there, and back
again, should never be the
exact same adventure every
time.

78. Mistakes will be made.
Failure will happen. And
that’s a good thing.

79. Once you know your mistakes
and failures, real solutions will
bubble up and show itself as you
go throughout creating your
MVP.

80. How about if I show you
instead?

82. Challenges
• Everyone works remotely
• 60 day deadline for MVP
• Life
• The unknown
• Fear
• Already a year in

83. We need your help to establish a design process.

84. So what did I do?
em a process the only way I kn

85. At first I
thought AGILE!

86. … but then I remembered this

87. And then I also remembered we’re all remote.

88. Which meant none of this was going to happen in person.

89. AGILE Methodology

90. Then I had a great idea!

91. Lean Methodology

92. Lean will work, especially with
this company already being a
full year in as a start-up.

93. so I started creating a Journey map, I gathered the overall scope too, so I could
understand the project and pain points…

94. Once I felt like I had the idea
set, I was going to build the
prototype.

95. Then I remembered that it wasn’t just me on the team.

96. Sure, I could have easily prototyped
this out, on my own. But I realized
that in order to create a solid product,
listening to my team first … having
empathy was key… in order to reach
that success.

97. So I asked Rachel Weissman, another designer
on my team..
“What are your thoughts on the home
page of the Sonder site?”

98. I wasn’t sure what else to
start with since I had already
mapped out a lot of the app,
but figured she may know
something that I don’t.

99. She responded with..
“Oh! I already have something created, but
I would love to get your thoughts on this
too.”

100. Me.

101. “Check it out!”

102. Although I thought the
design was fantastic, I
knew that Lean wasn’t
going to work the way
I had thought.

103. I was Discovering new
pieces that had
already happened that
looked nothing like the
site as it stood today.

104. Lean Methodology

105. These processes can
work in other situations,
although on this particular
project, it hasn’t.

106. So what could I
do?

107. I went back to the
only foundation I had.

108. But that wasn’t going to work either

109. This was a struggle.

110. No white boarding.No
sticky notes. No sketches.
No strategy architecture.

111. None of my go-to
strategies or tactics
were working.

112. I practically came face to face with the
beast of doubt and despair in my UX world.

113. Then I remembered my team
again.

114. Sean, I have some great
ideas for the future.
Business
Sean, we have a Trello. That
may help organize the process
better?

115. Maybe we could brainstorm
over the phone?
Design
That’s a great idea! Let’s take
a stab at creating a journey
map. We could use slack too!

116. The map

117. Design to Development & Business
We are going to walk
you through this new
site/journey map we’ve
put together.

118. Development & Business
This looks great!
But, what about
the interface?

119. Design to Development & Business
Well, UX is more about
understanding the user and
gaining their feedback to
make the interface usable.

120. … There was a good
long pause on the
phone…

121. ..and then they
answered…

122. I think this is great. We know
how important the experience
is when it comes to having
happy customers.
Business to Design
Having customers are key.
You guys have done well with
this.

123. Back-end Development to Design
Thanks for this, I think it’s
something that we need.
Especially so we know this
will scale over time.

124. Front-end Development to Design
This is great! This paints a
better picture for us when
working on the front-end.

126. ..and then they said…

127. Hey, what about
making the home
page functional right
now?
Front-end Development to Design

129. Design to Development & Business
Well, usually we would
have completed the
wireframes and the hi-
fidelity comps first before
prototyping.

130. Development to Design
Don’t worry! We can
get it done real quick.

131. That would be really good if
we could have something
more to show. Anything helps
when trying to win customers.
Business to Development
Hey that’s a great idea! We
actually have a demo to a new
potential customer.

133. Design to Development & Business
Well, why not? Nothing hurts
more than to just try it. Hey,
maybe we could just create some
hi-fidelity blue sky concepts too,
just to engage them?

134. Sean, we actually need the dashboard re-
designed, could you use that as your blue
sky concept? We also need a University
Profile page, and a type of marketing
based page, for the universities.
Business to Design
That would be awesome! We
would love to see what you
come up with!

135. Internal Design discussion
That sounds great! I’ll do it tonight!
Rachel, would you like to do the
university profile page and the
marketing page?
Sure! It sounds like fun! I would
love to put my own blue sky
concept on it and see what we
come up with.

136. We had gone completely out of any
kind of process. What about User
Research? What about sketching?!
What about my project tracking!

137. The truth is, none of it
mattered at that point.

138. … and that felt
extremely
Refreshing.

139. We practically skipped
sketching, or wire
framing.

140. Rachel’s
concepts

141. My
Dashboard
concept

142. The prototype

143. All of this was shown to the
business team, and to each
other…

144. …. and we all LOVED it.

145. Oh my gosh! This is incredible!

146. Later, this was taken
to USC…And we got
some fantastic
feedback.

148. Did this guy just give me
legit User Feedback?

149. He did! And there’s more!

150. It looks like Empathy is a two way street. The
love. I could feel it. The role was reversed.

151. It was so great that USC was
interested in us and thought we
provided great value.

152. Not only do we have USC interested as a
customer, but others now too…

153. … as well as investors!

154. UX had indeed transformed
the business. A company.

155. But UX had transformed a company
through being open to new
solutions, along with expertise…

156. But most of all.

157. UX had transformed human
lives on both sides of the
software.

158. Those creating it. As
well as those using it.

159. Transformation begins
FIRST, through the being
experiencing it.

160. A culture can’t become a
culture unless you make it
that way.

161. ..and you will never be able to
transform a company through UX,
without empathy. True… real…
empathy. And sacrifice.

162. From everyone on
your team.

163. Through this adventure, I
learned that we have long
forgotten gold, inside of us.

164. And we need to take it
back from that inner
Dragon.

166. We’re here to help create
great experiences, with
each other.

167. As a team of beings

169. We as designers - We’re
not here to dictate the
creation of great
experiences.

170. Because dictation never
made anything great.

171. It only destroys

172. It destroys human
relationships, creative
thought, dreams, hope..

173. …the future of any
company.

174. The User Experience does not
belong to a process, a business
decision, a CEO, a Product
Owner, A Principal Architect, or an
over bearing designer with some
crazy ego, who’s full of pride.

175. The User Experience for
great software belongs to
the beings using it.

176. Maybe instead…

177. The User Experience
should be called the Being
Experience.

178. But maybe that’s a talk for
another time.

179. And where is Sonder today
in the Journey?

180. Here, at the UX Dallas
Meetup, looking for more
feedback, from other beings.

181. What say you?

182. Help fight the dragon of
dictation, get the gold,
and join me on a new
adventure?

183. Thanks for coming!

184. Credits - Thank you for
helping make this happen.
Brian Sullivan
Jayneil Dalal
Chris Moezzi
Jarrod Ausborne
Michael Flatt
Rachel Weissman
David Mathews
Eric Cornelius
Jason Snodgrass
Rob McDiarmid
Mackenzie Taylor

185. Questions? Comments?

186. Sean Fallon
seanfallon.web@gmail.com
@SeanFathom