Articles of Note
“Many experiments I observe with teams do end up being thrown away, whether it is physical or digital. However some show signs of promise. Yet teams struggle with how to build upon the previous experiment. This is where teams can benefit from what I’m calling Experiment Pairing. Experiment Pairing is simply knowing what other techniques fit with an experiment to further advance your learning.”
edited by Janet M Six
“This month, the Ask UXmatters expert panel considers how best to make user research relevant to the company vision and integrate the learnings from research into product and corporate strategy. Key discussion points include making user research part of the product design and development lifecycle from the beginning of a project and establishing a clear connection between user research and product and corporate strategy.”
“I’m not the biggest fan of the infamous Double Diamond. I love the messages of divergence and convergence. I love the notion of focusing on what the right things is, and then delivering the best version of it. I just don’t appreciate its overuse and reductionist attitude to the design process. We all know it’s a bit messier than all that. That said, when dealing with the perception of design value in your organisation I have found that it acts as a good framework to understand where designers see their own value and the value of the wider team and organisation.”
by Teresa Torres (@ttorres)
“When engineers participate in the discovery process, we remember to use code when it’s the best way to test an idea. When engineers are missing from the discovery process, it forces the product manager to prioritize throwaway code designed to help us learn against production code to ship the next feature. This isn’t a fair battle. We want an engineer working with us throughout discovery to help us identify these situations and to help us build prototypes that require real code.”
by Dina Chaiffetz (@dinachaz)
“How many times have you been synthesizing research and wished you could follow up on something a specific user said? Using Slack as the initial research tool means you have an open line of communication which is easy to pick up and continue, or shift in a new direction. This asynchronous approach lowers the barrier to entry on follow-up questions and aligns nicely with some research methodologies like diary studies.”
Worth Another Read
by Paula Wellings
“Plan for productive groups … Without carefully designed activities, unhappy groups abound. Unhappy groups don’t really know what they are doing and spend their time arguing about how best to do something they don’t agree they are doing … A common attribution error is to assume that the group, or a group member is ‘bad’, but much of this badness can be avoided by ensuring the usability of the collaborative activity. Unnecessary ambiguity can be removed from the activity with tools like written instructions, models, props, templates and activity timing, while ensuring the real problem-solving remains unhindered by the supportive framework.”
The Lead Developer Austin Conference Redux
The Lead Developer Austin conference took place in December last year. We think you will find these sessions of especial interest.
The other sessions are well worth a look too.
Upcoming Events
Build, Measure, Learn, For Real, 15 January, London
Ordinary People, Extraordinary Results, 23 January, Mountain View
DesignOps NYC Meetup, 29 January, New York
Interaction 19, 3-8 February, Seattle
MTP Engage, 7-8 February, Manchester
Smart Scrum Product Ownership, 7-8 February, London
ProductCon London, 27 February, London
UX Camp Brighton, 9 March, Brighton
Agile in the City: London, 19-20 April, London (10% off with code “Adrian”)
Agile-Lean Ireland, 23-26 April, Dublin
Agile Manchester, 8-10 May, Manchester
User Experience Lisbon, 21-24 May, LIsbon
MTP Engage, 22-24 May, Hamburg
ACE!, 23-24 May, Kraków
Enterprise UX, 3-5 June, San Francisco
UX Scotland, 12-14 June, Edinburgh
Agile on the Beach, 11-12 July, Falmouth
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