Lean entrepreneurship-New packaging for user experience design

"Editor's note" is translated from smashing Magazine, translator @c7210. "Lean Entrepreneurship" has been introduced to us, small start-up companies should first to the market to introduce a minimalist prototype products, and then in constant testing and learning, with the smallest cost and effective way to verify that the product meets the needs of users, and iterative optimization of products, flexible adjustment direction.

The same lean user experience also advocates shifting attention away from the delivery process. The same idea is just in different areas.

The basic thinking and practice of lean Entrepreneurship (Lean startup), in a way, is actually what the experts in the user experience design circle have been telling and advocating for years. Unlike in the past, people are finally beginning to know what to look for. The so-called Lean User experience (Lean UX) is not a new thing in itself; like "AJAX", they are a combination of existing concepts and technologies that are more like "wrappers".

Entrepreneurs or founders of new ventures have been looking for answers to questions like "How to develop good products", and most of the answers we (UX practitioners, researchers, usability experts) have provided are too complex. Think of slang (also known as industry terminology) that only our own or our peers can understand, such as usability testing, user roles, real-sex research, eye-tracking, and more.

Lean entrepreneurship answers the same questions in a language that people can understand. For example, we are accustomed to saying, "Let's arrange a contextual inquiry." "And people who are familiar with lean entrepreneurship will say," Get out of the building! "(Related reading: Five things a good user experience designer should do)

Is this concept packaging necessary? I think so, otherwise there won't be so many companies beginning to understand the importance of the UX department, and there won't be so many new teams interested in implementing usability testing, iterative and user interviews.

In this article, we will look at the relationship between some of the principles of lean entrepreneurship and existing user experience research methodologies.

validation Learning and usability testing

Lean entrepreneurial thinking points out that the new team is not just about building valuable products, but more importantly learning how to create a sustainable growth business model, the "confirmatory learning" described in "lean Entrepreneurship" by Eric Ries. In my interview with Ries, he also said that the idea of "confirmatory learning" could help decision-makers validate hypotheses effectively.

And all along, in the user experience design related work, we typically implement assumptions into prototypes in the initial or iterative cycle of a product, and use prototypes for usability testing to verify that the product really hits the user's needs and whether the functionality provided by the product can be a receptive, easy-to-use solution for the user. (Recommended reading: Early prototype design and user testing)

The concept of "confirmatory learning" makes it easier for policymakers to feel the benefits of a "usability test", knowing that it can help them validate their ideas. Usability testing is often reminiscent of "time and money consumption" and "academic research".

Confirmatory Learning: If you believe that you can find the new world by sailing westward, you must verify your assumptions by relevant scientific theories and measurements, and adjust your course according to the results of the verification.

"Development – Measurement – cognition" and "Thinking – Implementation – testing"

The basic operation idea of lean entrepreneurship is to put the concept into the minimization of feasible products, measure the user's reaction, analyze the observation data, and make the decision of keeping direction or transformation. On the road to success, the new team must learn to accelerate such cycles gradually. This cycle contains three main parts: development (product), measurement (data), cognition (new ideas).

For lean user experience design, there is also a loop like "think – implement – test". The difference is that the feedback involved in this cycle includes not only the external measurement data, but also, more importantly, your own (designer) idea. You create a design that, based on feedback from the internal (self) and external (target or demand side), further generates new awareness, improves the design, validates and generates awareness, and repeats itself.

The two loops are very similar, so people who are afraid to verify and improve what they are creating, whether from the perspective of the product as a whole or from a user experience design, are now unable to stand.

Development – Measurement – cognition: How to build the fastest ship? Test your ideas, measure their performance, and gain new recognition.

Minimize viable products (MVP) with "as early as possible, as many tests"

Ries's interpretation of minimizing viable products (MVP) in "Lean Entrepreneurship" is "to spend the least effort, the shortest development time, experience a complete ' development-measurement-cognitive ' cycle" product version. For a long time, many UX workers have been reminding their supervisors or decision makers that if it costs 1 of dollars to solve problems at the product discovery and design stage, it will be $10 in the development phase and 100 dollars after the product is released.

We all understand a truth, that is, in the product concept of the exploration and design phase as early as possible through the prototype for verification work. In fact, the nature of the MVP is such an early prototyping tool for validating hypotheses and generating cognition.

MVP: You want to build a big ship, but in the beginning, you can start with the smallest construction cost, start with the boat, see if it really floats, and then expand it a little bit.

Transition (Pivot) and Iteration (iterate)

Imagine the "turn" movement in basketball (with one foot on the other and the other with the body), and one foot delegation has so far accumulated experience and ability, and the other foot symbolizes action to explore new business concepts. Different from the risk of pioneering new areas, lean innovation advocated small steps to move in different directions to adjust quickly. In this way, even if the failure, the consequences will not be too tragic, the team can still quickly adjust, continue to explore the new direction.

This is why we have always tended to adopt iterative design patterns or rite patterns in user experience design (fast iterative testing and validation, rapid iterative testing evaluation). Many product decision makers once thought it would be most appropriate to do usability testing when the product was near release, because the prototype looked more "good" and easier for users to use. However, most user experience designers have always understood that if they agreed to perform usability testing prior to release, especially the first usability test for a product, the following would probably occur gradually:

finally discovered usability problems can be listed as a long list. The product team will also find a lot of product design problems. Only those problems that are easiest to solve will be put on the agenda. Problems that are serious and difficult to solve will still be released with the product. When the team is ready to design and develop the next release, it faces a long list of new features in addition to the problems that have to be solved before, and then the priority of the problem is lowered again.

The iterative model is an effective solution to this vicious circle because it introduces fast, multiple-round, small-scale usability testing throughout the product design process. Jakob Nielsen has been promoting this concept for many years. Eric Ries, the author of Lean Entrepreneurship, introduced these ideas to more people in a more natural and understandable way.

Transformation: You want to beat your opponents, but it is unrealistic to try and win. A more effective way is to step forward attack, always keep one foot in the process, and be ready to retreat immediately when the attack is ineffective, and continue the next attack.

Client Development (Customer Development) and field survey (fieldwork)

The term "client development" is proposed by Steve Blank, a Stanford University professor, and is one of the advocates of lean entrepreneurship. The idea of customer development is to expand your own perception of who the customer is, what the customer likes, and what it needs, which is the famous mantra "out of the office building (get out of the building)". Driven by this, product decision makers and designers begin to visit potential customers, observe the actual situation in which they solve certain problems in the real world, and think about the way the product is designed based on the results.

Is there any connection between this approach and the traditional user experience design research methods? Of course. UX practitioners have been eating this rice for years, but we've used different sayings-ethnographic, real-research, production-mechanism research, exploratory research ... Is that right?

Customer Development: You want to trade with countries in the Far East, but when you do get there and communicate with locals, you find that they want to exchange tea for technology products, not the gold coins you previously thought.

Summary

As we said at the beginning of the article, the basic ideas and practices of lean entrepreneurship are, to some extent, what the experts in the user experience design community have been telling and advocating over the years. But compared to the latter, lean entrepreneurship leaders have done a lot of good work in the promotion and popularization of related concepts, and they have discussed in simple and understandable terms the vital role that user experience research and design work can play in solving company business problems.

Lean Entrepreneurship – New packaging for user experience design