Putting Lean UX into action
I wasn’t able to be at this month’s London IA event, which is possibly the first time I’ve ever missed it. Unavoidable, but a real shame because I had been looking forward to seeing Jeff Gothelf talk about Lean UX, and hear the debate that was sure to follow. By all accounts the Sense Loft was packed.
Jeff’s Lean UX slides have been immensely popular on Slideshare, which is one of the reasons it was great to have him in London.
Sjors Timmer has written a review of the evening for London IA: “Jeff Gothelf at London IA February 2012.”
I’ve just spent a few days bunkered down with a small team of developers to rapidly develop the next phase of one of our products. I’ve spent the time designing in the browser, with HTML, CSS, a dabble of Python and a smidgeon of PHP to bring it all together. The pace at which I could iterate the designs was much faster than if I’d been using any of my regular palette of tools, and at the end, the devs could even pinch little bits of my CSS to get the pages styled up.
The only deliverables I have at the end of the project are 32 HTML prototypes and one launched product. At the moment, I’m unconvinced why I would go back to working any other way.
“London IA: Notes from the talks”
Martin Belam, foreword by Ann McMeekin Carrier
London IA is a network of designers, information architects and thinkers. Since 2009 the group has been holding regular meetings featuring talks about UX, or of interest to UXers. This ebook is a compilation of my notes from those evenings, featuring talks by Andy Budd, Giles Colborne, Cennydd Bowles, Claire Rowland, Jason Mesut, Ben Bashford, Chris Heathcote, Dan Lockton, Relly Annett-Baker, Michael Blastland, Margaret Hanley and Richard Rutter amongst others. Topics covered range from ubicomp to psychology, from learning how to sketchnote to how to write a UX book, and how to improve digital design through diverse routes like copy-writing, designing for doubt, learning from music technology or taking care of typography.
“London IA: Notes from the talks” is available for Kindle for £2.47.