Lean UX Overview

 

When working on projects using the Agile development method, the Lean UX technique has been seen to be quite useful. If you are new to this technique, read on below to learn more about what it is all about.

 

What Is Lean UX?

Lean UX is structured in a way that ensures that it focuses on the experience under development instead of deliverables. This technique follows the rapid iterative cycles used in Agile development, with the aim of delivering useful feedback that can be used in each new iteration. As such, the main objective of Lean UX is to come up with user feedback as fast as possible, to facilitate swift decision making.

To deliver on the above, Lean UX requires a high level of collaboration among all team members.

The following is a brief breakdown of the Lean UX process.

 

Generating Assumptions

Instead of using requirements to come up with deliverables as is the case with Traditional UX, Lean UX starts with the formulation of assumptions. The development team sits down and comes up with a variety of assumptions that they know, or think, is true about the end user. The main aim of creating these assumptions is to kick-start the process by bringing everyone on the same page, around a common idea.

Since these assumptions may or may not be true, they may change at any point as the team better understands the problem(s) they face, as the process continues. For efficiency purposes, these assumptions are prioritized from the level of risk they represent.

 

Formulating Hypotheses

The assumptions generated above are then tested to ascertain whether they are true or false using hypotheses. During the development of the hypotheses, team members must come up with a means of identifying what defines successful outcomes. Where outcomes are not clearly defined, the team might find itself heading towards the wrong direction.

Where team members firmly understand the hypotheses used, and what the expectations are, they will be happy to have each of their ideas tested for viability.

 

Creating A Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

One of the main reasons why Lean UX is used in projects developed using the Agile method is that it allows for extensive experimentation with minimal wastage of resources. The MVP is an integral part of this process. A Minimum Viable Product can be defined as the most basic form of the product/output which can be used for testing purposes.

This allows for inexpensive abandonment of any test versions that do not deliver the necessary value and replacement with alternative versions.

 

User Research and Testing

The hypotheses used, and the MVP are both tested by users and the results collected for decision-making purposes. Since this is done quickly, to match the next Agile sprint, the findings are not as neat and/or meticulous.

To ensure that all team members have a shared understanding of the ongoing process, all team members participate in the research and testing work.

The above is just a brief description of Lean UX, only covering the basic concepts followed during the process. This information is only required to give you an overview of the entire process; however, there is a lot more to it.