Agile Methods for UX Design Course
Two intersecting circles demonstrate the way the UX design cycle fits into the engineering and development cycle.
At Hello Divorce we moved to using Jira as our product management software. And being at a startup that’s now defining processes and workflows means there’s a lot of opportunity to figure out the best way for our company to manage products, suggest ideas, and there are truly no hard boundaries to the projects I can take on and influence.
I leveled up my skill set by taking the Agile Methods for UX class by Laura Klein. This enabled me to contribute beyond my normal role to aid in building workflows, project structure, and design methodology with Agile.
First things first, this is not a class for learning how to manage projects in Agile, this class instead gave me a ton of tools to bring Agile methods to our design projects. Here are my top takeaways.
Figure out how to listen to the customer
We don’t design in a vacuum, we design products for people. Working at a small startup, it’s been challenging for me to get customer feedback. I’ve had to get creative and started to participate in some of the free informational calls we offer and collect customer questions. This has been hugely informative as I work on new products and iterate on previous products. I aim to answer questions before they call so customers who are unwilling or unable to call are still able to feel confident ordering our amazing products.
Design the smallest possible thing
I’m in the middle of a large migration and redesign of the customer account, so many cool ideas get handed to me. Ideas include collecting more customer info, connecting people with affiliates, news articles, or helpful checklists. Yes! I love supporting customers! But, as the sole designer, I need to ensure customers are able to do what they expect to do. So I need to focus on starting small and then iterating after we get feedback and customer success.
Design from the outside in
This idea is impactful in working with engineering. Designing from the outside in means figuring out infrastructure, functionality. and experience first then handing it off. Engineering can then get started building in tandem with me as I work on making the pixel-perfect UI and no one is slowed down.
Show the right people the work in progress
As I’ve mentioned, I’m the only designer on the team but I value critique from my peers. I’ve reached out to mentors, including those on ADPList and a UX Designer contractor to ensure I get design feedback. I also schedule time with my boss to show her the work in progress and explain the experience decisions I want to make for projects. Reaching out to other designers means I don’t bog down non-designers (like my boss) with design or UI feedback, instead I am able to show her concepts and flows that contribute to the user’s experience on the site.
Embrace imperfection
True Agile enables teams to put out products quickly to get feedback and encourage iteration. I first need to design something that is “good enough” to solve a problem. If it does, then I can get feedback and structure my work to support iterations to constantly improve. As part of the Agile Manifesto states: “working software” and “customer collaboration” are key parts of making sure yourself and your team are constantly bettering your products and development process.
