UX Toolkit for Product Owners

UX Toolkit

About one week ago I did a talk at the Agile Tour Vienna called "UX Toolkit for Product Owners". As I'm working as a Usability Engineer in several agile projects I learned that the team and especially the product owner can benefit a lot from directly talking to the users.

Because I think that UX is no magical thing that only can be done by people studying several years, I created a small "UX Toolkit" explaining 10 UX methods that could help product owners and other team members to get a better understanding of the users and that should help to validate their designs. The methods are End-User Interview, Contextual Inquiry, Personas, Scenarios and Storyboards, Card Sorting, Wireframes, Paper Prototyping, End-User Testing, Think Aloud and Heuristic Evaluation.

We tried to describe the methods briefly and we visualized how much experience is needed and how much time/effort is necessary.

In addition to the printed UX-Toolkit we provided a tiny Website (in German) for providing additional links to blogs and videos: ux.techtalk.at.


ux.techtalk.at

In the talk I presented then five methods including some real-life examples ... the slides (in German) are provided on Slideshare.

If you want to get the printed version of the UX-Toolkit you can directly contact me: claudia.oster[at]techtalk.at.

Besides that I want to highlight that the videos of the keynotes of the Agile Tour are online - for all UX-Designers the talk by Jeff Patton is a must-see. Have fun!

Innovation Games Retrospect: How I created my first game... & Upcoming Events

In September I participated in the Workshop by Luke Hohmann about "Innovation Games: Designing for Multidimensional Collaboration". In this workshop Luke presented how everybody can create a "serious" game by themselves in order to fit the own needs and purpose.

In the first part of the workshop Luke explained the basics of game theory about rules, the "game board", the resources in a game and the players' problem and motivation. In addition to his presentation he also talked about some real life examples and challenges creating games, which were very interesting.

In the second part of the workshop we tried to create a game on our own. Lukas and I worked on a game for "retrospective retrospectives". The idea is to get some quick feedback from a project team how the retrospective can be improved. The important thing is, that the method shouldn't be too complex to explain and everybody should be participating.

We used the idea of a metaphor and created a poster with a car body. The team will get a concrete number of missing parts, e.g. wheels, spoiler and engine, that they should add to the car in order to get it running. These missing parts should be the ideas how the retrospective can be improved.




Retrospective Retrospective Car Game

The idea and metaphor worked well, but it was a little bit too easy for the participants. So we learned that a game should also be a little bit tricky in order to be fun. Nevertheless, we learned a lot about creating a game and adapting existing games to better fit our needs.

Also really funny games were created in this workshop - like a game for Impact Mapping using the metaphor of a knight searching the way to the castle. The knight has to pass a dark forest with trolls, but there are some signs and a fairy that can help him to find the way.



"Serious" game with a knight, a castle, trolls and a fairy.

I would like to see this game in real-life.

If you are interested in the topic of Gamestorming and Innovation Games as well - I have some interesting events coming up in Vienna:

• 12th of November - Gamestorming Meetup Vienna
• 3rd of December - Innovation Games: Designing for Multidimensional Collaboration (Certification Course with Luke Hohmann) (Full-day Workshop like described above)
• 5th of December - Playcamp (http://www.playcamp.net/, Conference/Unconference with Luke Hohmann & Mitch Lacey)

September Events: Barcamp.Digital, Playcamp & Innovation Games-Workshop

Next week Luke Hohmann is in Vienna and there are two interesting events you can meet him:

playcamp Vienna

Luke Hohmann

Friday, September 18th, 2015, 9 am to 5 pm

This one-day conference is all about Innovation Games and Gamestorming.

"Playcamps are for anyone with an interest in learning how collaborative play can help individuals and teams collaborate, prioritize and communicate more effectively."

Luke Hohmann will be a keynote speaker. More information and registration can be found here: http://www.playcamp.net/vienna-austria.html

Innovation Games Workshop with Luke Hohman
Saturday, September 19th, 2015, 9.30 am to 5 pm

Luke Hohmann will moderate a one-day workshop about "Innovation Games: Designing for Multidimensional Collaboration" (Certification Course) at the TechTalk Office.
More Information is available on the TechTalk Website.

Barcamp.Digital
Friday to  Sunday, September 11th - 13th

And finally a short-term announcement ... if you have some spare time in Vienna this weekend (September 11th to 13th) - the Barcamp.digital is going on at the Microsoft Office - including the UXcamp - maybe you want to join. This event is free of charge.
More Information is available on the Barcamp.Digital Website.

Have a nice Weekend. Regards, Claudia

UX Certifications - honor or waste of money?

Several years working in the UX field I already had a few times a look on possible certifications and thought about the usefulness for my daily business. Until now I thought most available certificates are too focused on making money by some UX companies and doesn‘t provide any benefit for neither me nor our customers. In the last two years the CPUX was established by the UXQB (a special organisation created by the German UPA) and I tracked the process over the last years.

A few months ago I convinced myself to give the certification a try and I want to share my experience and opinion on that.

In general in the UX field it is important that everybody speak the same language. From the well-established tester certificates by ISTQB (especially the Foundation Level) I experienced that a certification can fulfill this expectation. So it was interesting for me to see if this is also provided by the CPUX certificate.
I was positively surprised about the state-of-the-art iterative approach that the content is based on. The used methods and processes are very similar to my daily business.

What is very important for me as well is, that the certification is provided by an established organization (= German UPA) that is not focused on making money. The workshops for the certification are provided by various other companies. Besides that the certification itself is relatively cheap.

I have one critic regarding the content of the certification. They have described the UX roles and their responsibilities regarding the UX deliverables (page 16 in the Curriculum (pdf)). I don't think this overview helps to understand what each role should do. For example describing that the Usability Engineer is responsible for the "UX project plan" is a little bit too much simplifying the process and tasks.

In general I was positively surprised by the content of the certification and it could be a good starting point to provide an established basis and vocabulary for our industry, but at the end a certificate doesn‘t tell anything about the quality of work we deliver.

UXcamp Europe 2015 - Day 2/Part 2: Conditio Humana (Why UX in real world sucks & agility stinks & some war stories) & Panel Discussion

Here are my notes from the final two sessions I participated at the UXcamp Europe 2015...
(Previous posts of the UXcamp Europe: Day 1/1, Day 1/2, Day 2/1)

#4 Conditio Humana: Why UX in real world sucks & agility stinks & some war stories - Jevgeni & Uli 

Conditio Humana is a philosophy term.

The Human Condition: We are born. We have to die. End of story. Everybody has to master the transition and they try their best.

BUT the limited perspective is leading to some limited results.

Have you heard of the peter principle? 
.... read about the peter principle.

Advertising & UX contradict each other.
"Let's make a website where people can..."
NOBODY - no user in the real world - ever will to that. Ever. Seriously

UX dies a slow death in advertising
- UX = Ease the pain
- Advertising = Increase the pain. ("Make the logo bigger.")
What is good for the user is bad for the brand.

"We've been working on our brand guidelines for 1 year, but we don't have something yet. Please use the version from 1996." (real quote from telecommunication company)

Why scrum does not work for big companies
General Show Stoppers in bsuiness: Procurement (they want to now upfront the costs in detail) & Legal

Show stoppers in doing:
- Daily business in departments, internal trainings, holiday situations
- Project vs. Operations
- Gap of reponsibility
- Agility in Strategy? Art? Creative Direction?
- Processes take time. Rework takes time. Time is money.

Who has participated in a daily standup taking longer than 1 hour?

"We don't have a product owner." (real quote from insurance company)

What can you do?
- Don't be afraid to fail. That's part of the process.
- Know when you screw up. It's a gut feeling. Act on it.
- Play. Have fun. You can see people smile in the results.
- Build a bridge you can be proud of. At least make some stories.

My conclusion: The scrum implemented in the large organizations was only bullshit-word-dropping, because Scrum with 400 people can't work - and it's not scrum.

... The conclusion: Isolate - Plan - Focus

#5 Panel Discussion

Panel discussion by a failed industrial designer, a failed frontend web developer, a failed project manager, a failed philosopher and a not-failed stage director :-)

Panel Discussion

Discussion on Apple Watch
"I have one so that I get to know the experience."
"I'm still searching for a use case."
"Probably sports is the main use case."
"The main use case of a watch is displaying the time."

Best Sessions/Topics
- Scrum Self Help
- "UX is still not appreciated how we want to have it."
- "The value of UX is there and we should try small steps to move the organisation." (referring to the talk by iversity)
- "We should not sell it, the results will sell itself."
- "A lot of eye opener discussion took place: like context ux, panel with women, education panel, ..."
- "Data collection is changing: is not only about collecting data, but it's about high quality data. But the analysis is done now very quick and dirty - I'm not sure if this is good or bad."
- "Visual User Research - Tools are very useful and easy to use."

The panel discussion closed with thoughts about how the UXcamp can improve... but many agreed that the conference is already at a high level and they should continue focusing on the Barcamp-Way of Conference.

Last but not least I also want to thank the organizational team for there perfect work and there huge engagement that was visible all over the conference.

See you soon :-)

UXcamp Europe 2015 - Day 2/Part 1: Scrum Self Help, VizWars and Shift Happens

Sunday Session Plan

After a great 1st day of UXcamp Europe - the second day again offered a lot of interesting session. Overall at the UXcamp Europe 74 sessions were proposed.

#1 Scrum Self Help - Tobias Ehni

Tobias started a session where he wanted to have some exchange about our problems and solutions regarding Scrum & UX.

Here some notes from the discussion:
- Being PO  & ScrumMaster at the same time is not a good idea
- UX experts working upfront are using Kanban Boards
- UX and PO can work hand in hand - both have to prepare upfront the Sprint.
- UX: not a finished concept is prepaired at the beginning of the project - it should be defined "far enough" for the next sprint.
- Ratio Dev/UX: 2:600 from 3:5… every project needs experts participating. If there are too less UX people, somebody else will do the job, like a developer.
- UX needs to part of the team and the whole team agrees on setting stories to done.
- "Green dot": The UX team had to agree at the end that the story is done (during the sprint).
- QA Engineer also can take care that the UX goals and requiements are fullfilled.
- UX also should fall in love building not perfect but working products and do continuous improvements - like the Developers are doing.

#2 VizWars - May the force of visualization be with you! - Tanja Cappell 

Tanja (@FrauHoelle) talked about why using paper and pencil are important and how to sketchnotes. Of course because this was a workshop about Sketchnotes... here's mine:

#3 Shift Happens - From product-centric to customer-centric in 12 months - Lara & Christina

In this talk Lara and Christina (from iversity) talked about how the changed their company culture towards user friendlyness. Iversity is live since October 2013 and is a plattform for online courses of higher education.

The following methods & steps they took in the last months in order to improve:

• Company Breakout: Building our army - "Therapy" for the company to build up a "real" team
  They facilitated two workshops:
  - Every departement was able to give feedback on other departments
  - Customer Journey workshop: Cross department teams and it was important to exchange the idea of the product.
• Guerilla Testing: Let experience, don't tell.
  Guerilla Testing was done with people from the company.
  It was important for the team, because they found out that it doesn't hurt to get feedback.
  Take Away: Don't talk about your great methods, the team should experience them.

Customer Journeys

• Customer Journeys: Using a customer journey it is easier to experience how the customer will feel using the system.
• Company Strategy: Adding top down to bottom up. While supporting improving the Pitch Deck they got closer to the CEO.
• Course Design: Creating new business opportunities
  They used paper prototyping and even role playing for designing the course.
  Now there are also supporting the universities in designing their courses
• Business Design: Building alliances
  Because of there visible work they were asked for other consulting jobs in their company.
• Organisation Design: Embracing crisis
  They were asked to make a organizational chart and helping restructuring the company: removed hierarchy, no departments anymore, only teams

Looking foward to an interesting afternoon.

UXcamp Europe 2015 - Day 1/Part 2: Designing for Context, Becoming buddies with your clients and 5 UX questions answered by Eric Reiss

Lunch @ Day 1: Sun is shining!

The first 3 session of the UXcamp Europe were really great... and so were the next 3 of day 1 at the UXcamp Europe 2015.

#4 Designing for Context - UX & new devices (Hany Rizk)

In a very crowded room Hany (@RizkHany) presented his learnings about "Designing for Context".

First he tried to answer "What is Context?"
Here & Now.
… also the physical, digital and social structures that surround the point of use.

There are the following traditional stereotypes:
- The Desktop Context
- The Mobile Context
BUT… Defining Mobile is not easy…

How should it be investigated?
Context based on data:
- Sensory data: Location, motion, temperature,...
- Hunt for patterns, and piece together the context of use accordingly.

When does users use which device?

What are the issues with data?
- Issues with data: Data cannot assure us of intent.
- Correlation vs. Causality
- Privacy concerns (especially relevant in Europe)

Hany tried an attempt to classify Context

• Device context
  - Device form
  - Native capabilities (of plattform or device)
  - Native guidelines (stick to them)
• Time
  - When will a user use the product? (morning, for lunch time, etc.)
  - What else is happening then?
  - What else could they be doing then? 
• Activity
  - Passive vs. Active (Passive activity: YouTube browsing / Active activity: Certain task I want to do) > Qualitative difference (Amazon dash button)
• Individual Context:
  - Ergonomics: Light on the screen based on the time of day (black screen), Bigger buttons for usage in winter that it is possible to use gloves.
  - Privacy
  - Behavioral preferences (likes, dislikes, search and browsing history)
• Location
  - "Mobile" refers to location, it's not a device category
  - Cater to local information needs
  - Show users the benefit they get from providing their location
• Social Context
  - Is there any user value for connecting this product to a social network?
  - What about sharing content from this product?
  - Would other people use the same device and/or product? (e.g. Netflix introduced various accounts, probably I am not interested in cartoon suggestions watched by my kids)

Contextual UX: It can also be hidden until one needs it.

One Example Hany often was referring to is Google Now: Based on time and location it gives you gentle information and suggestions.

Besides that also multi-device experience should be considered:

• Core features should be available on all devices
• Leverage native capabilities for each plattform

Conclusion: a "just right" experience - not too less, not too much.
Context is ever-changing, and your product should cater for that.

#5 Revolution and Evolution OR "Becoming buddies with your client" - Tina Ličková

Tina Ličková from Bratislava presented based on two projects various possibilities how to interact with your customers and presented her learnings.

Her presentation and ideas were very interesting and sometimes very controversial - like "I do my user tests with friends." She presented the following methods and ideas:

Design Mood Workshop

• "I'm always testing with the client": She is testing with the trained client - so they get some instructions how they should behave during the user test.
• Design mood workshop: Bring magazines and the customer has to play and select what they like.
• The yellow cards show the "values".
• The result and discussion help a lot in order to do the visual design.
• User testing with friends in "real-life": Tina is not testing in the lab, because she said that the users are already are in a lab condition. And she is testing most of the time with friends ("we know them")
• For most important subpages, do prototyping and prototype testing.
• For the critical user testing and interviews they hired a psychologist: "It's hard to find the right way to ask something. Psychologist can ask the same thing in 10 different ways."
• Internal research: "It's very helpful to work with the customer care team."

Tina's Intergalactic Wisdom

• Stop fighting about whether evolution or revolution is the king. The process and the client's reality will tell.
• Respect your client and their knowledge. (We tend to emphatize with the users and we are arrogant to the customer.)
• Know you client: Get to know if they have childen, a farm, are divorced, have to leave the office for a soccer training of their youngest, is a freshwede,…
• Play and let people play. Use sticky notes, magazines, etc… 

#6 Five UX questions in search of answers - Eric Reiss

Like in several UXcamp Europes before Eric Reiss (@elreiss) did again a great session. This time he tried to answer 5 UX questions.

#1 Why are companies doomed without a focus on UX?

Probably we should start with #0 What is UX? - perfect time for some great examples and several loughs: 

"Prostitution is a whole industry built around user experience"

"The lovely in europe is that you can present and drink at the same time"

UX of the UXcamp Europe: Registration by first name

We are not User Experience Designers - but we all design user experience.

"Should there be a surprise that business community is struggling to find out what we do?"

Eric's 1st Law of UX

User Experience is the sum of a series of interactions between:

• People

• Devices

• Events

Eric's 2nd Law of UX

UX design requires the conscious act of

• Coordinating interactions we can control

• Acknowledging interactions

• … (see slides for details)

#1 Why are companies doomed without a focus on UX?

Let's talk about pizza…. If you have 2 providers of the identical pizza: You would take that with the better service. 

Service design is one of the most visual part of the user experience spectrum.

Nota bene

• In a "me-too" world, UX is the key to company/products/service differentiation

• Higher product/service prices can be justified if you provide better UX

• Merely "making customer happy" cannot be the goal. Increased conversions IS the goal and UX helps make that happen.

What YOU can do now

• Do something quick and easy that makes your client/company look good

• Seek champions within the organization

• Make everyone feel that their contribution is valuable

#2 When is a company ready to embrace UX?

Nota bene

• Most companies examine UX when all the tried-and-true-options have failed.

• Most companies ignored UX because the definitions are too academic.

3 steps of establishing UX in a company

• Nobody talks about UX

• Everybody talks about UX

• Nobody talks about UX (either the establishment failed or succeeded)

What YOU can do

• Aggressive promote acitivities that are understandable, actionable and measurable.

• Get senior management involved

#3 Who are people that are good UX designers?

Nota bene - three key skills

• Curiosity - You've got to be interested

• Empathy - both for users and stakeholders

• Understanding - a perception is always true

○ One insight is worth a 1000 data points

○ "Understanding" does not mean "agreeing"

What YOU can do

• Get out of the building and talk to users

○ Not just to discover a problem, but also to see problems through someone else's eyes

○ You have to understand the context of UX

• Make sure you are always solving a real problem, not merely inventing one

• Don't just ask what, ask why

• Don't argue, LISTEN!

#4 What are the ingredients of UX?

Let's build an ark…

"Why do we have to do that? - BECAUSE GOD TOLD US TO DO IT!"

Building requires four things (the ux part)

- Content, code

- Strategy, visual design

- IA, navigation

- Metrics, testing, etc.

Nota bene - three key ingredients

- Utility: stuff needs to work

- Relevancy: stuff needs to provide value within a specific context

- Consistency: 

○ Stuff that looks the same should act the same

○ Stuff that looks different should act differently

○ Retroductive inference lowers the learning curve

What YOU can do now

• Create a UX shortlist

○ Focus on what is REALLY important

○ Eliminate the "nice to haves" - think feng shui

○ Matrix: Can be Influenced / can't be influenced & Business critical / Not business critical

• Keep users in the loop

○ Practice user-driven design

• Don't succumb to "deliverables creep"

○ Communicate, don't try and impress.

#5 How do we measure the results of our UX effort?

"Flying on time…"

Nota bene - three metrics

• Conversions - Has the business improved?

• Efficiency - Are we saving time and money? Are we reducing effort and stress for our users?

• Satisfaction - Are the users truly better off than before?

What YOU can do now

• Compare your work to current best pratices

○ Don' reinvent the wheel - until you need to

• Make sure you measure things that are important (!= Likes on Facebook)

• Talk to help-desk and call-center personnel

• Insist on having influence regarding the questions asked in all future customer-satisfaction surveys

One final story….

Alfred Wegener and continental drift (presented in 1911)

• He described tectonic plates.

• He was a meterologist - so he wasn't accepted by the geological society

What YOU can do now

• Don't let UX become a buzzword

• Don't think you need certification (It's not what you do, it's what you think.)

• Don't be afraid to disagree with current practices

• Pick your battles with care … but … 

• Don't be afraid to fight for what is right

... so this was a great closing session for the 1st day. You should have a look at the slides by Eric for some more funny examples and all the explanations.

Looking forward on the 2nd day to come... 

Good night :-)

UXcamp Europe 2015 - Day 1/Part 1: UX Guidelines, Visual User Resarch and Expert Reviews for Mobile

This weekend again I'm participating in the great UXcamp Europe in Berlin. During the Session Planning it is always fantastic to see how many participants step up to propose sessions. For most of the time slots the though task is too chose one out of the 7 parallel tracks.

Session Planning on Saturday Morning

Here are my notes and thoughts of the first three session of day 1.

#1 (Unofficial) Top 10 UX Guidelines - Jasson Schrock

The first session I visited was by Jasson Schrock (Onefootball) presenting the 10 UX Guidelines they want to establish in their company. He pointed out very well what UX experts should focus on. Some of the guidelines are very common sense in the UX community, but often still ignored.

The 10 guidelines are: 

Planning Phase

• Increase users happiness
  He pointed out that speed and simplicty are important, but not always the answer, and that it is important to empathize with the user in order to understand his needs.
• Solve a user need and make it a habit
  The Toothbrush Test is a possiblity to check if it could evolve to a habit - "Would you want to use it twice a day?"



MVP shouldn't been not just feasible.

• Make it valuable not just feasible.

• Plan for the next steps but focus on the MVP.
  New ideas should be collected and prioritized. 
• Implicit over explicit personalization
  We should keep the complexity on our end, not the users. To add a new feature just as a new setting that the user should take care of is not a solution.
• Tell a story
  ... and it's not a feature list.

Design Phase

• Have a clear visual hierarchy
  Check if your design can pass the squint tests. Squint - and check if you can still identify the primary and secondary hierarchy.
• Provide feedback for every interaction
• Encourage interaction with context
  For example community details can be used to improve gamification and encourage exploration (e.g. # of review, ratings,...)
• Be consistent. 
  ... and don't reinvent the wheel. Use common design frameworks so the user know what to expect.

#2 Visual User Research - Jan Diettrich

Jan (@simulo) did a nice presentation about Visual User Research. He presented various techniques of how visual techniques can be used to facilitate user research and improve the outcomes of workshops with users. With these visual tools you can focus on documenting workflows, moods, relations, etc.

Why visual tools?

• It's accessible for researchers and participants alike.
• It gives an overview
• It's easy for referring back



Mood diagram with annotations

• It helps not asking for features but for users experience

Sequence:

• Explain the task including an (not to well drawn) example 
• User should draw/write by himself
• Ask for more information, clarification, demonstration
• Wrap up

We also tried out the method of a mood diagram by drawing the mood of "Breakfast" from preparing to enjoying... It really was interesting to see which different moods various people are going through (motivated to prepare, because everything is smelling good vs. checking out that some ingrediants are missing)

I really appreciate that Jan provides all the templates and also a short book about the methods open source, so you are free to use it. (He would be happy about feedback or adapted templates.)

• Templates & Description: https://m18.uni-weimar.de/~jand/static/researchAssets.html 
• Book "A Beginners Guide To Finding User Needs": https://jdittrich.github.io/userNeedResearchBook/

He also recommends the book "Convivial Toolbox: Generative Research for the Front End of Design" by Liz Sanders and Pietter Stappers (on Amazon).

#3 WTF? Evaluating Usability Without a User - Expert Reviews in the Age of Mobile - Hans Joachim Belz

Hans-Joachim talked about Expert Reviews. Because I'm using that very often in my daily business it was very interesting especially with the focus on mobile reviews.

Expert reviews are cheap and can be surprisingly effective (check out the CUE reports).

WTF? Usability without a user?
Good expert reviews take into account

• User needs
• Mental models
• Typical perception behaviour
• …

Experts have extensive experience with user behaviour (use lab experience, participating in user research efforts,...).

Pro Tip #1: Create maps of needs & mental model
The map and mental model should be based on research.

Pro Tip #2: Multiple experts

• If possible let more than one expert review the product.
• Every expert tests independently. 
• Build consensus about your test results by a thourough and frank discussion of your observations.

Pro Tip #3: Use scenarios (and personas)

The Usability Inspector ... 

• Should have a (small) usability focused set of test devices
• Main display sizes, aspect ratios and screen resolutions
• Leaning towards the more contrained devices
• Should have a agreed set of evaluation criteria including
• Information Architecture
• Interaction Design
• Domain-specific aspects

AND you should evalute complete user journeys based on scenarios.

.... Continues on Day 1 / Part 2: Designing for Context, Becoming buddies with your clients and 5 UX questions answered by Eric Reiss  

UXcamp Vienna 2015 - Highlights: Usability testament, little money, heroes & communication

Last week the UXcamp 2015 in Vienna took place. The organizational team did a great job and we had 4 parallel tracks, so a lot of talks we could choose from. One highlight was of course the keynote by Rolf Molich.

Keynote: Rolf Molich - The Testament of a usability professional - 8 lessons from 32 years with usability

I want to highlight two of his learnings - #1 was that the more things change the more they stay the same. I agree 100% with this - because the basics haven't changed: the methods we use in usability haven't changed in the last years and how humans perceive and act is still the same, so the basic design principles are still valid.

And the second lesson was that we as usability engineers should set good examples and should sweep at our own door before you sweep the door of your neighbors. For example also our documents we create should be easily readable for the "users".


Include positive findings in your usability report, because "even developers have feelings".

Session #1: Improve UX with Little Money by @sarapoetze

Sarah presented ideas how UX improvements can  be done if there's not a big budget for usability available. The four topics:

• Use data that is already there (support request, read reviews in social media, analytics data, use photography for communicating ideas of the users environment to the team)
• Get information in your team (ad-hoc personas by Tamara Adlin - but be careful!)
• Get information remotely (remote usability tests, questionnaires)
• Guerilla testing (test with colleagues, pedestrians, etc.; Informal testing session with users (Barbecue); Tool: Rainbow Spreadsheet (Google))

During the discussion we collected further ideas and it's always a good idea to stick to Standards.

Session #2: Design Heroic Experiences by @DamjanObal

Damjan had a nice idea - he tried to map the Idea of "a Heroes journey" to the process of creating a Product or Project Vision.

Silly outfit

1. The Quest: What is the Problem we wan to solve? It's necessary to solve a real Problem.
2. Help Lois: Know the user, know their Problem and help them.
3. Villains: Who is the competitor? You should know him well.
4. A hero is special (after dark) & as you and me (during the day): The product is powerful and smart (in the backend) & simple and minimal (frontend).
5. The super: The product should have something Special.
6. Silly Outfit: The design makes it complete and can make it catchy.

Stan Lee: "More than normal, but believable."
Don't design something that is "out of space" - it should be approachable.

Damjan provided his slides on Slideshare.

Session #3: Agile Design Thinking in Distributed Teams by @CForaita

Chris presented based on one project how the team managed to work with distributed teams in an agile project.

The core idea was to have one kick-off workshop at the beginning together to share ideas and work on the project together - some details:

Empathy map

• Keep the team small (only participators, no observers)
• 3 days: one room, no chair > Idea: No boring Meeting
• Various methods, but all focused on gathering a lot of data
• Method for getting everybody at the same bus: 100 cards with random words, they had to scissor out 6 words "How would your product work best?"
• Empathy map for users
• Design product box: White paper bags, melt down everything what you learned in the last days > visible what is really important.

Session #4: UX - zwischen Forschung und Praxis am Beispiel Medieninformatik by @peterpur

Peter Purgathofer of the technical university in Vienna presented how they work on projects and presented the project Aurora 2015. This is a tool for sharing information between students and teachers and organizing the tasks the students need to fulfill.
The project is open source and available on github.

Session #5: How can I ensure better communication in teams? by @KarinCepin

The last session was a very interesting talk and discussion of how communication can be improved in teams. Of course a important method here are the "Retrospectives" and that we should pleasure failing.

"Failing is a big methaphor for learning an improving."

We discussed that it is very important to feel save in retrospectives. And Karin recommended the Book "Project retrospectives by Norman Kerth:

"Regardless of what we discover we need to understand that everybody did the best job , … "

During the discussion we collected further ideas how to improve communication in teams:

• Learning Session: there should be room to share what we learn (e.g. Dev-Jour Fixe).
• Finding a Mission Statement in the team
• "Getting to yes"-Method by Steve Blank: if the team has a problem they should ask themselves questions like "What would it cost for the company and would be the impact?" in order to provide this information to the management (further Information)
• Involve the team (different roles, different departments) in the ideation Phase (e.g. Creating the backlog together with the whole team)
• Support collaboration with pair programming, pair testing, bug fixing sessions

Like usually at UXcamps I learned a lot, had interesting discussion and met great people, See you next year :-)

Agile UX - Still some challenges, but I love it

Wintery Sprint Burndown :-)

I'm working in a company where agile was implemented several years ago - for me personally I work in agile projects since 2007. I'm a big fan of agile methodologies and I think it is the best process for the kind of software we are working on. I like the close collaboration between the various roles in one team and the early feedback from the customer.

Still I think there is a challenge for implementing UX in an agile process. For me personally the biggest challenge is the continues change of the UI and the interactions. Because additional functionalities are developed over a long period of time it's sometimes hard to integrate new functionalities in an optimal way. Often a UI "refactoring" would be necessary but the costs are at the moment very high and it's hard to convince oneself and the team that THIS bigger change is neccessary NOW.

In the last weeks and months I found the following interesting sources for Agile & UX:

• UserZoom published a free e-book "The Essential Guide to Integrating User Experience and Usability Testing in Agile" (registration neccessary): Nice overview of agile methods and some concrete suggestions like "A good rule of thumb is a 1:4 ratio of designers to developers. Also be sure to allocate project budget to user research and usability evaluation, ideally 10% of budget is a good target if possible."
• Lean UX - a great book by Jeff Gothelf
• One year ago Hoa Loranger of the Nielsen Norman Group published an article about "Doing UX in an agile world" with some interesting findings of case studies and a nice summary of the topic and the main challenges.

Upcoming conferences: UXCamp Vienna & SNEK

Hi,
I want to share some interesting conferences coming up in April 2015.

UXCamp Vienna 2015

On the 17th of April 2015 the UXCamp Vienna is again taking place at the FH Technikum Wien. The UXCamp Vienna is organized as a Barcamp - so this means everybody that participates should actively help to make a successful conference by giving a talk, communicating about the barcamp and share know-how during discussion.
The registration is already open - the early bird lasts until the 15th of March (30€). Other than usual barcamps the registration is not free - but the organization team invites a Key-Note Speaker and last year this was very cool.
The conference is mainly in german - but several talks are also in english.

SNEK 4

The SNEK conference is mainly focusing on .NET developers (and it is in german). The SNEK conference is taking place in Nürnberg (Germany) on 25th and 26th of April 2015. I will do there an introduction talk about UX review methods to find usability problems. Probably I will see you there :-).

Br, Claudia

UX-Findings: Develop UX Skills, Mobile UX & #littlebigdetails

Hi,

today I want to share some interesting articles & videos that inspired me in the last months.

Develop UX Skills

In my opinion one important goal of an UX expert should be to further develop know how about users and UX patterns over the time. As a team lead it is important to me to communicate this also to Junior UX Designers.
The article "Time with Users: Set Personal and Company Goals" by Jakob Nielsen was very inspiring for me to directly connect the time spent observing people with the personal goals.

Mobile UX: Luke W-How-To-Videos

The well-known UX expert Luke Wrobleski shared some interesting How-To-Videos on YouTube. He focuses on concrete UX problems in mobile development and explains solutions in detail.

LittleBigDetails - readme.io

There are several websites that collect littlebigsdetails - e.g. littlebigdetails.com. One nice example is the Password-Field of ReadMe.io.Check it out!

Login-Screen of readme.io

Regards, Claudia