image credit: ninja999Last Thursday, Organic hosted a panel discussion on how to fit the User Experience practice into an Agile project cycle. For more information on what Agile is, see the Agile Manifesto or check out the Wikipedia entry.
So, Why is This an Interesting Topic for User Experience Professionals?
With a trend to quick iterations it's hard for us to figure out where our discipline fits in. As is the nature of agile, the UX design can change and it becomes difficult to maintain a consistent experience. Add to this an ill-defined agile process (many want to say they're "agile", but in reality they're not), a UXer might feel a loss of control. So, what's the solution?
Advice From the Panel
The biggest takeaway for our team of Experience Architects was not to compromise user testing. Test early and test often. It's a great way to learn if the designs are usable, especially if you have a hunch that there are issues. Don't have a huge budget for testing? No problem ... there are some "guerilla" testing methods that can get you the information you need (see below). Some testing is better than no testing.
Another great piece of advice: your analytics department is your best friend. Chances are, they've analyzed something similar and can provide valuable metrics to support your hypotheses. Seek them out and ask for their help.
Other Takeaways:
• If your budgets don't allow for extensive research then find guerilla methods for testing. Round up users in your company or take advantage of services such as fivesecondtest.com.
• Agile should be ... well ... agile. While there is technically a right and a wrong way to do agile, the process in itself should be adaptable. If it's not working for you, then use the elements that do make sense ... resolve to have more face to face interactions and stand up meetings. Whatever works for your environment.
• In the spirit of the adaptable process, consider getting a head start on the typical agile development cycle. When incorporating User Experience into Agile, begin with Iteration 0 where the User Experience people lay out some design patterns and architecture. Turn this over to development and stay a week or so ahead. For more information, see Lynn Miller's case study.
Anthony Viviano
Strategists & Planners
Comments (4)
This is a great blog. Being learning a lot from articles here that don't find so much - or at least not so useful - on other digital marketing blogs. In particular,augmented reality and mobile marketing, but, also, more general things such as the way people interact with digital media (Is On-Demand Digital Media Causing Media Burnout), interaction of marketing and design (Getting Designers and Marketers to work closer together), and more. Will recommend to others. Keep up good work!
Posted on February 2, 2010 11:55
@Edmond: I'm happy you're enjoying threeminds! Expect to see more from us on mobile marketing as it grows even more this year, and augmented reality (AR) too.
Thanks for the recommends too!
.Sarah Jo, Editor
Posted on February 2, 2010 12:38
This is a great article. I design UX and also have previous experience leading agile projects.
One thing I find that helps a lot is to sink in quality time up front to define a user flow which works. Once the structure is well defined, the agile process actually becomes helpful by providing room for improvement.
Above requires, obviously, lots of interaction with engineers, and also a solid B.A. who gets the vision. (If you are the B.A., even better).
Thanks for keeping up this blog - it's amazing!
Posted on February 6, 2010 04:52
Mehmet - Thank you for the comment. User flows are a great way to walk a persona through a new design and also work great at breaking down a sitemap.
Glad you like the blog. I'll try to keep up the UX related posts.
Anthony
Posted on February 8, 2010 06:25