What Lean UX really means for UX professionals?

Lean UX is a concept that has been going around for a couple of years. Does it really means  something new to the field and professionals of UX or is just another way of naming what we are already doing?

Jeff Gothelf, one of the dominant voices in the movement, defined in an article Lean UX  as "the practice of bringing the true nature of our work to light faster, with less emphasis on deliverables and greater focus on the actual experience being designed.

Jeff is right when he suggests putting less emphasis on deliverables. Over the years, User Experience professionals have created a long list of documents with which often we torture our clients. In a quick mental review I could mention:

• Heuristic evaluations
• Personas
• Usability tests
• Iterative prototyping
• Mind maps
• Concept maps
• Sitemaps
• Wireframes
• Storyboards
• Scenarios
• Content inventories 

And so on. For many years it was necessary for us to create this corpus because our disciplines needed techniques, tools and deliverables that position themselves against others. But in the process we lost focus on our customers to whom we spoke an incomprehensible language or at best very distant to his, the business language.

Does Lean UX means that we should not create more deliverables?

No. Lean UX means to me a process for designing products and services that progressively, quickly and efficiently can refine the value proposal for users.

This definition does not include the deliverables as a core concept of what is or is not Lean UX, because often the generation of specific deliverables (although not directly linked to product design) is necessary to achieve the project objectives.

Let me explain this: in the context in which startups move, where Lean UX has its maximum applicability, one of the most important milestones is to raise capital. To do this, entrepreneurs need some kind of documentation (eg. usability testing reports) to investors to justify the need for more money to polish defective product areas or even rethink it completely .

The origins of Lean UX

Most of the concepts behind Lean UX arised with the Lean Startup movement, which was based in Lean methodologies, a particular type of agile processes. The Lean Startup movement was founded by Eric Ries and is based on five principles:

• There are entrepreneurs everywhere
• Entrepreneurship is administered
• Generate validated knowledge
• Innovation measurable
• Process Build-Measure-Learn (build - measure - learn)

Lean terminology, new names for old processes

Although the terminology used by Ries and the Lean Startup movement is different from the one we used as UX professionals, is closely related to processes or techniques we use frequently:

• Generate validated knowledge: is nothing else than doing user testings to obtain information with the purpose of validating the assumptions made during the design phase of a product.
• Measurable innovation: means taking metrics when testing with users, which perfectly could be typical usability metrics (effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction).
• Pivot: is one of the central concepts of Lean terminology. Describes the possibility of changing the course of product design based on knowledge obtained in usability tests.
• MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is what we call a testable prototype.
• Customer development: refers to leaving the cubicle and researching the way users use the product in a real context. It's what we call fieldwork either participant observation, contextual interviews or contextual surveys.

The Lean work process is iterative

The work process suggested by Eric Ries and called Build-Measure-Learn is an iterative process as commonly used in projects of User Centered Design:

What brings Lean UX?

Lean UX brings two changes that I consider interesting for the UX  field :

• A new way of communicate what we do: for many years UX professionals have spoken a foreign  and boring language for business people: "Usability Testing" "Heuristic Evaluation" "Personas" "Mental maps" are some of the strangest and abstract words ever invented. By contrast, the terminology proposed by Lean UX is much closer to the language used within an enterprise, and allows a better understanding and a connection with what we do and the results demanded by the business.
• A refocus of our work: Lean UX proposes to focus on the two most important partners of our iterations: business representatives and users. We must act as interpreters between two actors that at the begging may seem strangers but at the end must become best friends.

What means Lean UX for user experience professionals?

Working under Lean methodology requires some changes to the professionals capacity to deliver better results. Among them:

• Better understanding of the business: this is perhaps the greatest deficit of designers and developers who are well trained in the technical and operational aspects of their disciplines but often lacking and resist the business vision, and results orientation.
• Increased flexibility: the thoroughness that apply certain UX techniques can often make it more difficult to provide rapid and valuable inside to the business. Working with hybrid techniques is a possibility to avoid this.
• Higher speed: means to do all this faster.

How to overcome resistance to the implementation of User-Centered Design.

Incorporating usability techniques and processes of User-Centered Design (UCD) in companies that are not used to working with them can become a daunting task. Over and over again we hear arguments that justify the rejection and invalidate the possibility of change, even if this is minimal. This article describes the most common arguments we hear, and proposes concrete actions to refute the negatives.

Common barriers and excuses to implementing UCD

Over the past ten years, I have had the opportunity to work for companies of different markets and I find that the difficulties and barriers to implementing UCD are quite similar, regardless of the type of company or sector in which they operate.

However, the problems are different depending on the degree of maturity of each company in relation to usability and user-centered design. Taking the maturity model developed by Keikendo (link in Spanish), an IT and UX training company, it is possible to address barriers and common excuses that the design and development teams typically use, and present each one of them with arguments and concrete actions that neutralize them:

Stage of maturity	Common barriers and excuses	Arguments and courses of action
1. Unintentional User experience is not designed intentionally.	Ignorance: Usability and UX discipline is unknown.	Training.
	Rejection: Experience design is considered unnecessary.	Do nothing. They will discover the UX value on their own.
	Incompatibility: The methodology does not allow user testing.	Do usability testing with the finished product to expose the problems.
2. Self-reference Interface is designed as if users were members of the design and development team.	Cost constraints.	With 10% of the total budget of a project you can achieve an 83% improvement.
	Time constraints.	A round of user testing can be completed in one week.
	Lack of specialized resources.	Outsourcing, hire new resources or train existing ones.
3. Expert Based on the experience of one person. There is no method.	No formalized methodology.	Design and implement a feasible methodology, not an ideal one.
	Perception of uncertainty on results.	Quantitative and qualitative assessments during the test.
4. Centralized There is person in charge of experience design. There is a method.	Usability and user experience is required for certain projects, not for all of them.	Use metrics from projects based on UCD and compare them with projects that used other methodologies.
5. Distributed All teams are aware of usability and UCD. There is a method.	Resistance from senior management.	ROI is the keyword: Take metrics and show how the UCD boosts ROI.

Table: The five maturity levels, the barriers and the actions to take.

Specific arguments and courses of action to fight resistance:

Training : Some of the actions you can take when your client doesn’t know anything about usability and user-centered design are providing introductory courses, invite them to professional meetings or even explain the main concepts at informal meetings.

Choose your battles: The arguments heard rejecting UCD range from “boring” to “not necessary”. Whatever the case, it is not worth spending too much time convincing naysayers. The impact of UCD on business, the final quality achieved for a given product, and improvements in customer satisfaction are explicit benefits. Being against UCD is based mainly on dogma than reason.

User testing: In addition to being one of the main techniques of UCD, user testing is a powerful realization tool. It is important to involve design and development team members, and even invite managers and stakeholders to the usability sessions.  Watching and listening to users has a magical effect on those who continue to oppose to this methodology.

Comparing costs: In order to dissolve the excuse about costs, just demonstrate what the cost of not using a user-centered design methodology would be. The UCD is more efficient than other methods and reduces costs in development, maintenance, training, and support.

Prioritizing with time constraints: UCD allows for prioritization initiatives.  When time is short it is very important to decide which tasks should be carried out within the time available to obtain the best possible results. A round of user testing with just five users allows identifying most of the usability problems of any interface and can be done in one week. At the end of just one round, valuable information is gathered to support future design and development decisions.

Relying on experts: If the project is important for the company don’t hesitate to hire a consultant o a UX agency. In addition to solving the problem, the company can learn from them during the process.

Remove barriers related to the methodology: The process of UCD is not dogmatic.  In fact, it is considered one of the so-called agile methodologies, defined as a process rather than a structured methodology. This allows greater flexibility and adaptability to the requirements of each specific project.

Reducing uncertainty: The best way to generate certainty and reduce resistance to the adoption of user-centered design is to show quantitative and qualitative results from using this method. This involves measuring key variables of each project. The three most common variables are: effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction.

Break the resistance of stakeholders: From a business perspective it is more convincing to use metrics that feed into the traditional equation of a successful Web site: I = V x C x R, where:

• I: Income
  V: Number of unique visitors
  C: Conversion rate
  R: Return rate