As a UX professional, agile is less about a methodology and more about adaptive design practices.  It’s about taking all of your “UXPERIENCES” and squeezing them into a magic box and then pulling out the tool, item, or design pattern you need.  It’s about taking business requirements and using an idea to formulate working models and design concepts.  The tools are not the Swiss army knife, you are! The key to making Agile UX work for you is the ability to draw upon experiences and resources quicker and faster.  You need to be able to filter what’s important and what isn’t.

Hey UX, it’s me, Mr. Time Lines.

Deadlines and timelines exist in the agile world too?  This is why you constantly need to balance time, cost, and resources. Basic project and time management are keys to your overall success.

Many UX and visual designers have experienced the agile design time crunch.  Manufactured time constraints can entirely kill the design process.  In reality, design and development are not as different as you might think.  Design tends to evolve through different changes in color, layout, relationship, space, and more.  Development evolves through refinement, efficient, logical code.   Each of these two disciplines require discipline to know when to stop.  Use timeline as a motivator instead of as a constraint.  If you get to a good design before the clock runs out, you win. If you get a fully complete, functional, usable design the first time around you are much less likely to iterate the design.

Spending more time than is necessary is where UX people get stuck.  We tend to become isolated on UX island and continue to build boats with different colors, shapes, sizes and positions, while others have already left the island to explore new territory.  You need to be cognizant of when you become stuck on the island.  Find a place to leave your boats and make notes on points you want to iterate later.  Be sure to bring this up in the next planning meeting!  Be aware of your revision points or no time will be allotted for changes in later iterations.

How Much Pre-work Is Enough Work?

When examining your product backlog list, it is essential that the list is clean and groomed by your product owner.  This gives you time to identify UX functions before starting on any development. Resist the urge to just design and get something built, especially if you aren’t using a Kanban methodolgy.  If in your agile cycle you have a load 0 start point  this is the perfect time to start queuing up your UX agenda. If you don’t save time before the project and after each iteration for pre/post UX planning this is a red flag. It can lead to catastrophic failure.

This brings us to the million dollar UX question, “How much work is enough work if a wood chuck could chuck wood?” The answer is simple: Just enough!  Different situations are going to require different thinking processes and different tools from your arsenal. Maybe you are used to a waterfall process where the design is tossed over to developers never to be seen until a complete product. If you are lucky, you, as the UX team, are included at the start of the project brain storming.

In the several cases I have seen, stakeholders and business teams won’t even consider inviting low level employees to these meetings. This is really sad because there is so much value to be gained at this point of the thinking process.

Here are a few guidelines to help you gauge “just enough”:

• What do your stakeholders or management expect as deliverables? Sketches? Wire-frames? Mocks? Prototype?
• What’s the definition of “done” for the iteration?  (I could spend a whole article on this subject alone…)
• How long are your iterations? A longer iteration gives you more time, but always, always leave time to plan, conceptualize and prepare for the next iteration.
• Two weeks ahead of the development cycle is widely accepted as best practice. I personally find that if you have one week iterations you should plan one week. This is after your load 0. (providing you get this time.)

There Isn’t Enough Time To Complete My UX Design.

Even in waterfall methodology there is never enough time to complete the design. Agile is no different, except expectations can be and should be set by the UX and development team. You, as the team, are completing the work and only so much can be done in an iteration.  So what expectation will you set?  That of the overachiever?  Perhaps you have the completionist mentality.  Maybe you are a perfectionist.  You may even be the repeatist.   Each of these traits can be your undoing in a fast pace, real world design situation.  Time is money and money is time.  In order to succeed, you need to be AGILE. You must put aside your own defeatist design patterns to see success.

• The overachiever seeks to get so far ahead of the development team that requirements change right underneath them.  This can lead to wasted effort and a sense of under accomplishment for the whole team. Stay focused on what you signed up to do and do it to completion. Notice I said don’t do it until it’s right.
• The completionist believes the end UX needs to be in a final production ready state. The true goal of agile is to be able to easily complete an iteration of a product and then if necessary change based upon stakeholder or user feedback. Re-iteration and redesign is necessary, but sadly, often not followed in agile.
• The perfectionist must always have the design perfect. It’s not going to happen.
• The repeatist continues to build on the completed design with three, five, ten different designs. This can spur new ideas, but this also can start a violent redesign cycle where nothing ever reaches a state of even close to done.

Set  your ground rules up front. You are responsible for your part in the team. If the team fails an iteration, figure out the problem. What went wrong?

The experts will tell you not to point fingers or blame other team members. The truth is you need to get to the root of the problem. This may come across as blaming in a number of forms. Be professional and state the true concerns. Your project depends on the sanity and civility of your team. Here is just a small sampling of some comments I’ve heard after failed iterations:

• Requirements were not clear
• User stories kept changing
• I over estimated how much I could handle
• The team over estimated how much they could get done
• Outside influences such as bugs and other unaccounted for tasks got in the way.
• Team member x only has y percentage of time available and z is dependent on their knowledge
• The stories were too big
• The UX was not “done”
• The development was not done
• QA hasn’t had time to adequately test
• Team member X was sick and not available
• We couldn’t conduct usability testing
• I came up with a better idea and started over again.

No matter what the reason, the team signed up to do the work. The unexpected is always going to happen, so expect it.   Let the team know if you have to work on a special process every week that no one else can do.  Don’t wait until the morning scrum to solve a roadblock, fix it immediately.  When you detect your failure, or potential for failure, early, there is still time to change the course. Above all, stay involved in each part of the process. A technical decision can hurt an application UX decision. A brilliant UX decision can dramatically increase development time. The group needs to stay informed, in control, and empowered to complete the project before the clock runs out and the money stops flowing.

Taking a look back at the past several years of User interface design has revealed some interesting insight into trends and techniques. The last few years we have been undergoing a transformation of the user experience. Today I believe this is no longer true, at least at this slice in time.

Cue The Time Machine

Let’s take a trip back to art history. The great artist Rembrandt created many works of art and unlike many artists he was fortunate to be recognized as an expert in his lifetime. This expertise allowed him to take on many jobs, but he wasn’t the best at managing his money.

During his lifetime, he took on several apprentices that wanted to learn and emulate his skill. This masterful imitation was carried on in the works of his apprentices. They took what they learned from their master and produced new works. Think of it as Creative Commons of the Renaissance. Imitation was encouraged, clients expected to have the same level (or better) of artistry as their next door Lord, or Lady.

Hopefully, I still have your attention, if not come back to the light Carol Anne!

The Cloned Experience

Lets fast forward centuries ahead and we discover the same is true with 2009, 2010, and 2011. Everyone wants to imitate the greats – Facebook, Mint, Google. It all depends on who is on top at the time.

This level of expert imitation is in many cases what your client expect at the bare minimum – A term I like to refer to as “The cloned experience.” Make my app work like Google’s “x” or Facebook’s “y”. Where “x” or “y” is a feature or experience.

In essence, we are copying the masters of our time, trying desperately to capture the glory and wealth these masters hold. By copying the styles, techniques, features, and experiences we hope to improve our customer base, application value, etc…

The interesting thing to note is the “what” we copy doesn’t stay the same forever. Take a look back to the 2006-2008 time frame and we were all trying to duplicate features from Yahoo, Myspace and the like. What magic thing happens to push the online design and experience to a new age? Web 2.0 (I hate that term), was really about a transformation in customer experience. In even simple terms, we started designing experiences like we should have been designing them all along. Due to cost, time, and acceptance of the UX field many companies couldn’t accomplish this level of application design. Why justify spending money on the experience when it already has all the features?

Despite this mentality there were a few companies trying to elevate the experience beyond expectation. These companies took the most complex interactions and with the help of faster libraries, better programming tools, faster databases, transformed to a more immediate, less random experience.

At the very core UX’s view was transformed as we struggled to mold how users work with our applications, but beyond the tools we started to break down complexities in new ways. What happened was a digital Renaissance, we thought of experience as more of an emotional connection to the user. We tried to break away from the term user and attempted to make the experience personal.

But wait, you say “didn’t we already do this in the dot.com era”?

Yes, we tried to, we attempted desperately to accomplish a personal connection with our applications. In case you don’t remember the imitated experience of the pre/post dot.com era was to tack “MY” on to everything. “myweb” “myplace” “myspace.” As of the writing of this article, myspace is on the way out. It’s now more about our, but I’ll talk about this more in a future article.

Relation And Location Bring Social Realization

One of the underlying factors of this rapid transformations is relationship and location.
Certainly, the ability to interact faster with our users, clients and customers plays a big factor in these quicker transitions. What used to take centuries, now takes years. In the matter of an hour I can view 10 designs and go hands on with several experiences across the globe. I can try out the latest app in Korea, converse with a friend of twitter, and view a viral video all from the convenience of the IPAD in the bedroom.

I would bet if you took a random sampling of applications in different industries created during this and the past year you would find a large similarity in features, functions and experience. There are reasons “business intelligence people” would like you to believe why this similarity exist.

I’ve heard everything. “Well, X company probably spent billions on user research”, to “Company on Top at the time is doing it or will be doing it”. The simple answer is we conform to the norm of the time. And in many cases regardless of the perceived user experience. This makes it very difficult to move to a transformation of the experience.

This brings us back to the present. We are in the pre-phases of Web New. 0h! (You heard the term here first.) What is the catalyst that brings about a transformation from the common experience to New Design.

If you listen to all the news right now, most people would say the tablet revolution is upon us. After years of research and money the technology has finally caught up to the need, desire and want of the average user. Is this enough to classify this as a transforming experience? Should everyone start jumping to these devices and build custom experiences?

In the next article we will take a look at some factors that contribute to a transforming user experience.

Rembrandt: wikipedia

First off the panel picker was vastly improved and the design makes it a lost easier to sift through 1000+ panels. Now if the titles would just accurately depict what the panels are about the experience would be a bit more pleasant. There is a lot in a name, but some of these panels I really can’t make heads or tails about what the talks will be about.

SXSW 2011 – What’s a SXSW?

What makes a great conference full of five days of panels great? Is it the people, the conversations, the business deals made in the hall, or getting to witness and interact first hand with awesome startups? Well, It’s a little bit of all of these things. Ultimately, it comes down to the presentations & banter in the halls while waiting for panels.

The greatest thing I personally gain is inspiration to continue writing and practicing in the user experience field. It’s wonderful to come together with some of the brightest minds in the world talk, eat, and party. So let’s take a look at a few of panels I may potentially attend next month. I only say potentially, because you are encouraged to move panels if something is not to your liking.

A Word To The First Timer

I encourage you to attend the first day session How To Rawk out at SXSW Interactive. In the past this panel provided excellent comments, superb tools, and great advice to get you the most out of your experience.

A Few Sessions that are Intriguing

• Gamechanging: Turn Your App Into A Cooperative Game
• Fan to Fanatic: True Blood’s Marketing Hook
• Games User Research: Oh no! You’re Doing It Wrong!
• Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills
• Design-Driven Innovation: How Designers Facilitate the Dialog