Lean UX | Experience Dynamics

Incremental vs Big Bang Redesigns- evaluating design changes for users

By Frank Spillers

on June 28, 2020 - 10:16pm

paper airplanes moving in same direction but one moves in a different direction

Summary: Big design shifts can have strategic value over tactical changes or little shifts if done right. When updating or enhancing a UI, it is important to evaluate the true magnitude of your changes. Users get notoriously upset at having to learn new designs, though not all design changes are equal. Adjusting your UI 'change-shock' so users can adapt and adopt easily is critical. Managing interface change can help lower the risks and mitigate user adoption.

Evolutionary or Revolutionary design changes?

Evolutionary changes make tactical improvements, feature by feature. Revolutionary changes blow everything away and change the Interaction design paradigm from the ground up. Both cause changes which cause users to learn.

MVP vs. "Minimal Desirable Product"

By Frank Spillers

on May 29, 2020 - 5:08am

Summary: The MVP is a double-edged sword in that it focuses your engineering and product management priorities, but might steamroll user priorities. An MVP that misses 'desirable' will risk the unintended consequence of poor user adoption. Instead, MVP's should focus on what constitutes priority, need, and desire from an understanding of user context, behavior, and scenario.

Where MVP went wrong

The MVP concept comes from the Lean Startup (book by Eric Ries). Ries emphasized meeting user needs and failing fast. For Ries, this meant quick prototypes and rapid user testing. Unfortunately, like many Silicon Valley UX teams (and authors), his definition excludes the important user needs discovery process that is part of the ISO and industry-standard Human-centered Design method.

[Part 2]: 12 Things Managers Need to Know about Running an Outside-In Design Org

By Frank Spillers

on May 26, 2017 - 2:56pm

Summary: Outside-In design organizations live and breathe user experience. The main differentiator between a technology driven organization and a Human Centered design approach is in decision-making. With Outside-In, design, business and technology decisions are gathered, validated, measured and infused into the Sales, Marketing, Business and Technology fabric. This post (in 2 parts, see part 1 here) explores those key organizational behaviors we've discovered and worked with for over 15 years. We've included to-do items for managers to action these insights.

UX Power Up: Lean UX technique: the Design Studio

By Frank Spillers

on April 28, 2015 - 2:08pm

In this week's UX Power Up, Frank discusses a Lean UX tactic for developing rapid wireframe ideas...the Design Studio. Design Studios help teams cross-pollinate, but they have a downside too...

Transcript below...

Hi Frank Spillers here, Founder of Experience Dynamics and its time for this week's UX Power Up. In today's UX Power Up, I'd like to talk about Design Studios. So Design Studios are not places where you go to design in a UX studio or something, they are actually just a term that's come from Lean UX- an efficiency methodology and approach to developing better user experiences.

The Design Studio is basically a collaborative workshop. What we do in Design Studios is a collaborative workshop with stakeholders and so you might include developers, designers, you might include Directors and in smaller companies more senior management roles.