Re: Agile UX

> On 14 Oct 2016, at 01:21, Adam Sroka [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> [SCRUMDEVELOPMENT] <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> 
> Personally, I haven’t been very imp ressed with the books that I have seen that focus specifically on Agile and UX together. I think that’s partly because there isn’t a whole lot to say that is very specific to the combination. As with other things like testing, security, architecture, etc, embracing change has implications on your ability to do things that take out-of-bandwidth time so that you either can’t do them or must do them over-and-over in tiny increments. Analyze your portfolio of UX practices in that context and you should be good to go. 

I’d actually disagree with that quite a lot :-) There’s a lot to say. Hell, there are entire conferences on the topic. Unfortunately not a lot has been written down in book form yet.

Yes – some practices are there, but others are new and evolving. For example at the UI design / visual design end of the spectrum the way folk are building live design systems / style guides has changed (and is changing) how folk approach prototyping, approvals, development, etc.

The more hypothesis driven approaches from Lean Startup / UX have changed interactions between the more generative end of user research and dev teams. I’m building/represting persona in completely different ways in recent years for example.

I’m certainly practicing UX work very differently from ten years back, and very _very_ differently from 20 years ago.

Unfortunately I don’t think there’s one-true-book. Several are useful, but it’s like asking for the one-true-book on agile from the dev side.

<warning: infodump incoming>

Book wise recently there has been.

* Lean UX, Jeff Gothelf & Josh Seiden - "The" book on Lean UX. Good introductory read on Lean UX, but can only do so much for the size of book. It’s also a bit light on some of the more generative user research approaches from my personal perspective. Still a useful read though. Less good for non-UX people IMHO. (disclaimer: comments apply to 1st edition, not read new 2nd edition yet)

* UX for Lean Startups, Laura Klein - I think this fills some gaps in Jeff & Josh’s Lean UX book. Especially on the user research side. I also think it’s a *much* more approachable read to non-UX folk. Something that you can give to the rest of the team. Don't be put off by the "Startups" bit.

* Lean Customer Development, Cindy Alvarez - Again, something very approachable to non-UX folk in language and tone. Like Jeff, Josh’s & Laura’s books it doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about integration with agile teams specifically, but the techniques fit in with agile approaches very well (indeed, agile approaches are required for this sort of UX approach to work well.). This is more relevant to PO folk.

* I've not read it yet (having a year of reading only women authors in 2016), but I fully expect Tomer Sharon’s "Validating Product Ideas" book to have lots of relevant stuff (it's original title was "Lean User Research"). http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/lean-user-research/ <http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/lean-user-research/>

* Jeff Patton's "User Story Mapping". Not a UX book per-se — but a user story mapping is an excellent practice to grok — and the book also spends some time talking about product management / discover in agile contexts. Probably my most pimped book last year.

* And I’d probably keep my eye on Laura Klein's upcoming Build Better Products http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/build-better-products/ <http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/build-better-products/> since I think it will have some relevant stuff. 

These are a bit older, but still have useful stuff in.

* Agile User Experience Design, Diana Brown - This is great for UX folk wanting to grok agile more, and has several case studies on agile/ux teams. However, it doesn’t really dive deep into specific Agile UX practices. Good overview book. Especially for non-agile UX folk.

* Agile Experience Design, Lindsay Ratcliffe & Marc McNeill - Much more of a toolbox of techniques/approaches book. The last third-ish of the book is basically a list of techniques. There’s some stuff I’d niggle with in here. Especially on some of the ways they talk about Agile - but it’s kinda hair-splitting stuff if you’re just getting started ;-)

* User-Centered Agile Methods, Hugh Beyer — This is more of a UX-person coming to Agile book, than an Agile folk adopting UX book (if you see what I mean). My personal approach is a prett different from Hugh’s - but there’s definitely stuff worth thinking about here. If you’re dealing with a more traditional UCD group then this would be very approachable for them.

Just on the topic of usability testing Steve Krug’s "Rocket Surgery Made Easy" fits in really nicely with agile - and very approachable for non-UX folk.

Outside of books I’d also take a poke at these two online communities.

* Balanced Team (balancedteam.org <http://balancedteam.org/>) - This community grew out of some UX and Agile folk trying to play nice together, but has a bit of a broader scope now. They do online/offline meetups, conferences, a slack, and a mailing list. Conversation is as useful as respectful as this one is IMHO. I first heard about the stuff Janice Fraser et al were doing around Lean UX here, long before it was cool and sexy ;-)

* https://groups.yahoo.com/groups/agile-usability/info <https://groups.yahoo.com/groups/agile-usability/info> - This is AFAIK the oldest community of folk that have been poking at Agile & UX. Almost no traffic now, but has a bunch of smart folk subscribed and some gold in the archives. Might even kick off again if folk ask interesting questions ;-)

To be honest I think plugging into the communities around agile ux & lean ux will be more helpful to you than the books. Despite folk having been poking around this for more than fifteen years now, not enough of it has been written down. For example very little has been written about UX at the organisational level in larger orgs that have moved to more agile/lean practices throughout.

<biased>
Oh yes. I may put out a newsletter on the topic occasionally that might be useful. Previous issues / subscription at http://is.gd/HNz5TN <http://is.gd/HNz5TN>
</biased>

Also, while I have not actively curated these in several years you may find some of the links on

    https://pinboard.in/u:adrianh/t:leanux <https://pinboard.in/u:adrianh/t:leanux>
    https://pinboard.in/u:adrianh/t:agileux <https://pinboard.in/u:adrianh/t:agileux>
    https://pinboard.in/u:adrianh/t:agile+ux <https://pinboard.in/u:adrianh/t:agile+ux>

of interest (although the relevance to the topic may, on occasion, need filtering through my brain first ;-)

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Adrian

-- 
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> / +44 (0)7752 419080 / @adrianh / quietstars.com <http://quietstars.com/>
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