An Introduction to Agile UX and How It Differs From Lean UX
UX is simply the User Experience when using your product and encompasses everything from the functionality to how the interface is perceived. Traditional UX design processes, however, can be burdensome and can take a considerable amount of time to come up with something that is seen as “right.” So when you are looking to hire bootstrap developer for your next project you may wish to see if they have Lean or Agile UX experience.
Lean is something that has come very much out of the Automotive and manufacturing industries and was pioneered by the most successful car company: Toyota. The main concepts of lean revolve around delivering what the customer wants with the minimum amount of waste. These concepts and ideas have been refined and developed and are now heavily applied within the software industry also.
Lean design looks to help your team to deliver what the customer really wants as quickly as possible. So your bootstrap developer must be able to fully understand what the customer really wants along with every other member of the team.
Lean development for UX seeks to provide you with rapid feedback with less reliance on having a rigid specification at the start of the process. Rather than having a firm understanding of what the final product is going to look like, you seek to have rapid iterations of the design to see what really works.
This starts with understanding what the actual problem is that you are seeking to solve and developing your benefit hypothesis. The team then works together to develop a design that delivers this as a Minimum Market Feature (MMF). This is then evaluated and the cycle begins again.
The Lean methodology seeks to remove all forms of waste or inefficiency from the process. This ensures that you quickly reach where you want to get to.
Many are confused as to the difference between Lean and Agile. There are in fact many similarities and a huge amount of overlap between the two, and often there is little need to try to fall into one methodology rather than the other.
Agile is more about how you will actually work. Agile UX values the use of teams and puts less emphasis on paperwork and rigid processes. It focuses more on reaching the end results effectively and quickly to everyone’s satisfaction.
Agile and User-Centered Design
User-centered design is all about understanding what the customer really wants from your product. It is all very well having a set of clearly defined goals for your project and hitting them on time, but what if what you have delivered fails to satisfy what the end-user really wants.
You must ensure that you fully understand what the final user needs to be able to deliver a product that will satisfy. You must then test this to ensure that you have actually delivered what they want. Often there is a mismatch between what a user says they want and how they actually use the product in practice. Hence the need for an iterative design process that will improve and refine what you design.
This very much fits with the agile framework and the way that the teams will work together to deliver a product design that is going to meet those user needs and expectations. Hence the need for your designers and bootstrap programmer to fully understand the whole agile and lean philosophy and methodology if they are to deliver the best user experience in the shortest possible time.
Tips for Implementing Agile UX
There are some considerable differences between more traditional UX methods than Agile UX so there will have to be a lot of changes made for your programmer to earn their bootstrap developer annual salary.
The following are some tips for implementing Agile UX for your next project:
- Train everyone: all members of the cross-functional teams involved in the project need to be fully trained in Agile development. This includes designers, your bootstrap development team, project managers, and everyone else. No one should be left out of the training as all have an input into the process.
- Define your agile process: agile is not a methodology that can be simply used off the shelf. There is no one-size-fits all way of doing things. There are many different models that are proposed and not all of them will be suitable for your particular project and team. You will need to define precisely how you will apply the agile ideas within your specific project.
- Use tools that allow you to collaborate: it is vital that the entire team is able to communicate with one another throughout the whole process. With teams often being separated at times in different countries your bootstrap web development team must be able to regularly work with the designers and other members without delays.
- Ensure that the team works iteratively: many designers will attempt to go straight to what they perceive is the finished design. When working through Agile and Lean UX you must ensure that you follow the iterative process.
- Work as a team: developers, programmers and designers must all work together as a cross-functional team if the best results from the initiative are to be realized.
How Can Using Agile Help You?
By using an agile approach to UX design it is possible to realize many benefits no matter what project you may be working on and the level of complexity it may contain. The following are just a few benefits you will gain through approaching your project using agile:
- A much better comprehension of the problem that you are trying to solve through your project;
- Rapid testing of concepts prior to undertaking any coding;
- Offers you methods to visualize the vision of your project;
- Improved usability without having to work hard at it;
- Reduces risks within your projects.
UX Designer Agile Ceremonies Responsibilities
Agile and Scrum employee regular ceremonies at different stages in the process. These meetings vary from daily ceremonies at which the team members will show their progress through to more in-depth meetings such as for planning during which problems will be discussed in more depth.
Every team member must be able to fully interact with the others in the team and present their information so that all fully understand how the project is progressing and what still needs to be done. This is the same for programming and UX design staff.
Why Do You Need Agile Design Teams
Your designer and bootstrap programmer salary will very much rely on how well they are able to deliver the objectives of the projects on which they are working. By utilizing agile and lean UX within their projects they will be able to deliver more robust results quicker every time.
This applies to everything from logo design through to highly complex user interfaces. All software and design projects can benefit significantly by using an agile approach to the work. The team working process ensures that your designs will not only be something that the programmers can deliver they will also be just right for the end-user.
