Day 83 - Iteration

Perform iterative design. It's rare to get things right the first time. Create multiple interaction designs, get feedback, and try different things.  Repeating, changing, and simplifying your designs can help you hone in on the problem you're trying to solve.

Day 74 - Problem Solving Using the Five Whys

Problem solving requires getting to the root causes of the problem. To figure out the root causes you need to dig deep into the underlying sources and symptoms of a problem. But how do you clearly discover and articulate the actual problem?  Use the "Five Whys" iterative question asking technique. Each subsequent question forms the basis for the follow up question.

When asking the five whys make sure you write down the specific problem/s and answers to your questions. The real problem is likely to change or come more into focus the deeper you dig.

Classic example of the 'Five Whys'.
The problem: the car won't start.

1. Why? The battery is dead (first why)
2. Why? The alternator is not functioning (second why)
3. Why? The alternator belt has broken (third why)
4. Why? The alternator belt was well beyond its useful service life and wasn't replaced (fourth why)
5. Why? The vehicle was not maintained according to the recommended service schedule (fifth why, a root cause)

Day 31 - 6 Lean UX Tips

Lean UX is a set of flexible activities that teams use to attempt to rapidly create user experiences. Lean UX is based in agile and lean startup methodologies where the team (stakeholders, product, design, development, etc) swiftly creates prototypes, tests, and iterates while balancing business needs and customer needs. The key is to externalize and share broadly.

A teams's lean ux process may look like this:
Strategy session -> Business needs -> Audience needs -> Ideation -> Sketching -> Prototyping -> Testing

Or put another way:

• Think
• Make
• Check

1. Understand the business/customer needs and have the problem you're solving for articulated. Get stakeholders aligned and get business goals prioritized.
2. Have stakeholders work on the big picture concept. The designers should work on the details.
3. Make customer personas rapidly getting people to show them to each other and present them.
4. Scenarios - what are these customers thinking about in the moment they are engaging. What motivates the persona? People can work as teams on this.
5. Ideation and Sketching. Get people to individually, rapidly create/sketch volume in this step and quickly iterate on the designs. Present them and show them to everyone, critique and iterate.
6. Prototype and Test continuously. Prototyping is a strategy for efficiently dealing with things that are hard to predict.

What Lean UX tips do you have? Share your Lean UX tips in the comments section.