Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden from Neo Innovation recently announced their new book Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience at SxSW. This is a great book, which I believe is a must-read for UX practitioners. Here’s why.
As a young designer working on digital products and services, I remember being surprised and confused at the antagonism I often encountered from product managers and software developers. “The design is good,” I thought, “so what’s the problem?”
I did everything I could think of to win them over. Maybe the designs weren’t good enough? Maybe the documentation wasn’t clear? Did we need more research? More process? Better arguments? Better politics? Cupcakes?
The only thing that seemed to work was collaboration. When it worked, the results were amazing. But true collaboration was rare and difficult to cultivate. It often seemed to come down to luck and personality more than anything else. I also witnessed a great deal of false collaboration, in which designers found themselves relinquishing their own point of view and power to appease others on the team.
After years of experimentation, I wholeheartedly endorse the methods presented in Lean UX. Using the game-changing insights from Lean Startup as a jumping-off point, Gothelf and Seiden have articulated a set of principles and working practices grounded in deep cross-functional collaboration and rigorous experimentation that promise to empower UX practitioners and unlock the creative potential of teams as never before.
Many designers I have spoken with wonder if Lean UX is truly new. Aren’t we already “agile”? Aren’t we already collaborating? My answer is that, while there has indeed been a shift towards deeper collaboration in recent years, and I have seen powerful tools and methods emerging, I do believe that the Lean UX approach represents a genuine phase shift. The approach outlined by Gothelf and Seiden is the first articulation of a comprehensive, predictable, and repeatable methodology that is truly collaborative and at the same time places user experience in its rightful place, as the beating heart of agile teams and lean startups.
This approach is not easy, however. It requires that designers give up something we have understandably held very dear: control. We must let go of the idea of up-front perfection and our desire to be heroes, and begin to think of ourselves not just as designers, but as co-creators, facilitators and creative partners. But, if we can do that, I believe this approach can transform teams and organizations and dramatically increase the effectiveness of user experience practitioners everywhere.
