UX design at the heart of Agile culture

Coming from the world of software and IT development, Agile culture is in many ways linked to the Design Thinking approach. Agility covers a certain number of precepts that make it possible to revolutionize traditional project management methods known as “sequential” or “predictive” (V or waterfall cycles) by iterating throughout the project with the advertiser and the project stakeholders (CIO, designer, developer, end users, etc.). Here are some keys to reading an Agile approach oriented towards UX design.

Agile Philosophy

The Agile concept was born from the observation that a large number of IT projects fail due to excessive methodological and legal rigidity. To caricature, the advertiser constructs an ultra-precise specification, communicates it to the agency; the latter works for months to decipher it and get as close as possible to the expression of need. This results in major gaps between the expression of need and the deliverable due to a lack of iteration, the total absence of co-creation and the non-scalable nature of the initial specification.

Agility has its manifesto whose pillars are:

  • The primacy of individuals and interactions over impersonal processes and generic tools
  • Developing working software rather than developing comprehensive documentation
  • The need for constant collaboration with the client instead of the strict application of a task allocation matrix
  • Developing an effective response to unforeseen change, rather than following a pre-established plan that becomes obsolete during the project

In support of these pillars, the Agile precepts outline 12 principles (here) moving in the direction of a strong collaboration between advertiser and agency. But what is the place of User Experience design in this very “development” oriented method?

SCRUM PROCESS (crédit : collectiveinnovation.com)

Lean UX to build the “Product backlog” and build the designs

In the heart of SCRUM is a prioritized list of requirements desired by the customer, expressed in their business vocabulary and terminology: this is the Product Backlog. This list of requirements can (and should) arise from a design thinking approach based on the lean UX.

Through workshops involving the advertiser team and end users, we will endeavour to answer the following questions:

  • Who are our users?
  • What is the product used for?
  • When is it used?
  • In what situations is it used?
  • What is its key functionality?
  • Who are the competitors and how can we differentiate ourselves?
  • (…)

The workshops (user interviews, value proposition, warm-up, persona, etc.) are carried out over short periods (1 day = 1 workshop = 1 restitution) and must lead very quickly to sketching and prototype phases. These prototypes are used to symbolize the Minimum Viable Product (see diagram below) and to iterate with the developers/designers on key interface features. This phase is used to feed tests with the various stakeholders of the project and to review the Product Backlog by assigning new features and removing others. The Product Backlog results from co-creation work (agency/advertiser) and workshops that are resolutely user-oriented. We thus minimize the risks of designing a product that is far removed from the advertiser’s objectives and user expectations.

A UI-UX focused backlog?

If “lean UX” workshops allow you to design an MVP close to user needs, there is no guarantee that the user experience will be good! To avoid potential pitfalls, add to the backlog items a precise description of the desired UI/UX elements for each feature (tooltip, help message, animations, etc.) These elements can be prioritized into “must have” and “nice to have” (based on the criteria of Bastien & Scarpin pto define these criteria). This prioritization makes it possible to decide on the production of UX elements in the event of a delay (I prioritize the must-haves for batch no. 1 and agree to deliver the “nice to haves” in batch no. 2, for example).

Design at the heart of SCRUM

The scope of a SCRUM project must include a member of the UX team in addition to the traditional “Product Owner”, “Scrum Master”, development team. The idea is to provide developers with design guidelines to avoid unnecessary or incomplete developments. Here too, interactions between the UX and development teams allow the birth of new ideas promoting a satisfactory and faster evolution of the MVP delivered after each Sprint. It is possible to work upstream of the sprints on the design of the screens and the functionalities to be integrated in order to carry out user tests on short cycles without delaying the development phases.

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