The following experts have contributed answers in this edition of Ask UXmatters:
- Jessica Enders—Principal at Formulate Information Design
- Leo Frishberg—Product Design Manager at Intel Corporation
- Pabini Gabriel-Petit—Publisher and Editor in Chief, UXmatters; UX Strategy and Design Consultant; Founding Director of Interaction Design Association (IxDA); UXmatters columnist
- Gerry Gaffney—Founder and Lead Consultant at Information & Design
- Michael Griffith—User Experience Director at Hewlett-Packard
- Adrian Howard—Generalizing Specialist in Agile/UX
- Traci Lepore—User Experience Professional at Bridgeline Digital; UXmatters columnist
- Robert Reimann—Lead Interaction Designer at Sonos, Inc.; Past-President, Interaction Design Association (IxDA)
- Baruch Sachs—Senior Director of Human Factors Design at Pegasystems; UXmatters columnist
Q: Are techniques such as rapid prototyping, Lean UX, and agile development making user experience better or worse? Why?—from a UXmatters reader
“There is both good and evil in each of these approaches,” answers Michael. “We really need to stop thinking that there is a single cure—philosophy, approach, process, or methodology. It’s not that simple. Every client, project, and development team is different. Problems start when we become dogmatic in what we do. It is human nature to apply what worked last time and avoid what didn’t work. There is some value in that, but when we lean on our prior experiences as a crutch, we can easily become dogmatic in our approach. Within each project and situation, there is an opportunity to analyze the needs and do the right thing, at the right time.”
“As with any process or tool, appropriate use yields superior results,” responds Robert. “What provides the greatest benefits to the user experience are product development teams that are able to successfully integrate design and development processes and methods rather than being at cross purposes to each other. Program management that really understands how design and development fit together is critical to creating good a user experience.”
“These techniques are making user experience better,” replies Leo. “None of them is new to the design domain. Agile was a response to software development practices, but was never meant to address design practices. Design has inherently been iterative, using rapid prototyping—or sketching. Please see my upcoming UXmatters article ‘Fast, Loose and Oh So Very Wrong: How I’ve Come to Love Agile UX Design’ for further discussion of this topic.”
“I think these techniques can make user experience better or worse, depending on how you go about it,” asserts Traci. “If you’ve ever read any of my columns, you know that I’m all about following an iterative process, because it breeds innovation by allowing you try ideas quickly and either fail or succeed before you move on. The problems with these Lean, rapid, agile—or whatever other synonym you choose—techniques happen when you don’t keep sight of the big picture along the way—or even worse, don’t start with a rough big picture to begin with. You fall into the trap of getting caught in the weeds of details or designing a non-cohesive whole.
“In the theater, the reason the iterative pattern for the rehearsal process works is because you work on small pieces, then iteratively begin to put them together. You work on parts of a scene, then begin to run through the whole scene. You repeat the process for the next scene, then once the next scene is well rehearsed, you walk through the two scenes together—and so on, until you have whole acts and an entire show. Also, you wait to add tech, costumes, and a full set until there is a stable framework for the whole production. Think about this in your UX process. Sure, follow an agile process and test sprint-sized bits. But remember to test bunches of sprints together at various points as well to make sure the whole picture works together. And never, ever start without a clear vision of what you’re aiming toward.”
Rapid Prototyping
“I think, without question, that rapid prototyping, when properly employed, can make user experiences better,” answers Robert. “Getting prototypes in front of colleagues, stakeholders, and target or existing users is a great way to get quick feedback addressing your design direction, business needs, customer needs, and usability. While this feedback can’t completely replace more in-depth, in-context usability testing—like you might get through an alpha or beta program—or the nuances that extended testing with working prototypes can uncover, it can certainly identify gross interaction, navigation, and presentation issues with a design, as well as areas to watch more closely in follow-on testing.”
“Rapid prototyping is a very effective approach that integrates well with our practice of iterative design and testing,” replies Pabini. “It encourages closer collaboration between UX design and front-end development and lets us test functional designs with users and iterate our designs quickly. With the trend toward responsive Web design, it’s becoming more important to prototype our designs for the Web in HTML/CSS to ensure that we deliver optimal solutions for all target browsers—whether on the desktop, tablet, or mobile phone. The time has come to forsake wireframing and go straight from sketching to prototyping.”
“Rapid prototyping provides the ability to test, then iterate rapidly and offers the opportunity to enhance the user experience,” says Gerry. “However, a potential risk with rapid prototyping is that there may not be sufficient time to consider the design implications of a finding between one iteration and the next, so you may lose the opportunity to explore alternative solutions.”
