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My boss challenged me to figure that out and through this book ( and a few others in the series like Lean Customer) I realized w
on October 16, 2016
I work for one of the largest companies in the world. We have tons of ideas, too many. What we didn't have was a way to prove that people wanted the ideas. My boss challenged me to figure that out and through this book ( and a few others in the series like Lean Customer) I realized we had all the pieces in the company already, we just needed to tie it all together.
As an engineer I also used to take the mindset that only the consumer research folks in the company could talk to customers. Now I try and talk to 3 a week. Ideas are rarely the issue which is the focus of many other books.
I came out of too many brainstorming sessions thinking what a waste of time. I replaced those with the alignment meetings mentioned in this book.
As an engineer I also used to take the mindset that only the consumer research folks in the company could talk to customers. Now I try and talk to 3 a week. Ideas are rarely the issue which is the focus of many other books.
I came out of too many brainstorming sessions thinking what a waste of time. I replaced those with the alignment meetings mentioned in this book.
on August 24, 2016
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It explains UX design in the context of lean startups. It’s a great read for anyone, even if you don’t work at a startup. And it made me laugh out loud several times as I was reading. (I listen to Laura’s podcast, What is Wrong with UX, so I’m familiar with her sarcastic sense of humor.)
Laura shows you how to validate hypotheses with UX tools like user research. She goes into detail about the different user research methods out there and when to use them.
I’m glad Laura also explains an MVP. Contrary to popular belief, an MVP is not the s***tiest version of your product you can ship. An MVP is the smallest thing you can build to validate or invalidate a hypothesis.
Laura uses funny stories and examples to illustrate her points. I appreciate her analogy “fixating on the cupholders.” Fixating on the cupholders is like building a car that doesn’t have any brakes, yet focusing on how to design the cup holders. This analogy refers to when teams channel time and money into building the wrong things, such as building low priority features.
Laura talks about fixating on cupholders in the context of startups, but I’ve seen this happen outside of startups.
I also appreciate Laura’s approach to new product ideas. Laura says, don’t try to come up with brilliant product ideas out of thin air. Instead, think about every product as a solution to somebody’s problem.
This book is packed with great stuff for entrepreneurs and UX designers. Do yourself a favor and read it. :)
Laura shows you how to validate hypotheses with UX tools like user research. She goes into detail about the different user research methods out there and when to use them.
I’m glad Laura also explains an MVP. Contrary to popular belief, an MVP is not the s***tiest version of your product you can ship. An MVP is the smallest thing you can build to validate or invalidate a hypothesis.
Laura uses funny stories and examples to illustrate her points. I appreciate her analogy “fixating on the cupholders.” Fixating on the cupholders is like building a car that doesn’t have any brakes, yet focusing on how to design the cup holders. This analogy refers to when teams channel time and money into building the wrong things, such as building low priority features.
Laura talks about fixating on cupholders in the context of startups, but I’ve seen this happen outside of startups.
I also appreciate Laura’s approach to new product ideas. Laura says, don’t try to come up with brilliant product ideas out of thin air. Instead, think about every product as a solution to somebody’s problem.
This book is packed with great stuff for entrepreneurs and UX designers. Do yourself a favor and read it. :)
on February 23, 2014
I really love this book because it consolidates the key principles of Lean and in an easy to understand way, and Its really helped me plan my projects better. You dont have to be an expert to understand it. I refer back to specific chapters a lot when I work though new projects.
I think of the design and development process very differently now, after reading this. Especially in regards to metrics, and analytics, and deciding what i need to measure to determine my design decisions have actually improved my app. As I designers, I need to explain why ive changed the design and help show that its "better" than it was before and that people like it more. It also gave me tons of ideas how to test out new designs to see if they are truly better and result in more engagement. It relaly de-mystified many concepts for me. Its helped me ground all my decisions in reality and think more clearly about how to make design, schedule, and make requirements decisions.
Its really useful for PMs, designers, and developers because all the concepts can be applied to all these roles in different ways. I can see the changes throughout my team after we all read this. So, I highly recommend it.
I think of the design and development process very differently now, after reading this. Especially in regards to metrics, and analytics, and deciding what i need to measure to determine my design decisions have actually improved my app. As I designers, I need to explain why ive changed the design and help show that its "better" than it was before and that people like it more. It also gave me tons of ideas how to test out new designs to see if they are truly better and result in more engagement. It relaly de-mystified many concepts for me. Its helped me ground all my decisions in reality and think more clearly about how to make design, schedule, and make requirements decisions.
Its really useful for PMs, designers, and developers because all the concepts can be applied to all these roles in different ways. I can see the changes throughout my team after we all read this. So, I highly recommend it.
on July 30, 2013
As I am currently participating in a startup accelerator program for a new business called PressBaby, the "Lean" series of books has been recommended many times. I just completed a third book in the "Lean" series: Lean UX for Startups by Laura Klein. When I started this book, we were in the phase of the program where we were thinking about how the end user would be interacting with our product and realized that we were just making guesses at what they would do and building within our own development skills limitations. Lean UX for Startups confirmed that we were approaching it all wrong and chastised us for even thinking that we could possible proceed with any kind of success along the route we were currently on. The majority of the book is about research and testing. I was looking for UX principles with hard and fast rules we could follow for developing a successful product. I quickly learned that there is no such thing. There is only test and learn, and then test and learn some more. I highlighted 54 passages from this book. Here are a few of my favorites:
"If you get nothing else from this book, please remember these three key points: (1) User research. Listen to your users. All the time. I mean it. (2) Validation. When you make assumptions or create hypotheses, test them before spending lots of time building products around them. (3) Design. Iterate. Iterate. Iterate."
"Climbing to the top of the hill you're on gets you higher, but it doesn't always maximize your altitude. Sometimes you need to find a taller hill."
"It's probably not worth your time to fret and sweat over every single pixel on every single new page, mostly because you should always plan on iterating. When you're a startup, any new feature may be killed or transformed in a week's time."
"...visual design can screw up interaction testing. If your tester has an immediate positive or negative reaction to the visuals, you're going to get different information than you would if she could effectively ignore the visuals. Grayscale wireframes or Balsamiq-style sketches make it much easier to ignore the look and concentrate on the interactions."
"Visual design is how something looks. Interaction design is how something works."
"A useful wireframe, in my opinion, needs to include all the copy, buttons, calls-to-action, and navigation elements of a real product. It doesn't have any visual design yet. That comes later. But it's definitely where you're taking all the elements that you sketched out and making sure that they not only fit together on one screen but that they also hold up throughout an entire feature or product."
"Lean UX always has a measurable goal, and you should always figure out how to measure that goal before you start designing. If you don't, how will you know that your design worked?"
"Trust me, people will forgive ugly faster than they'll forgive unusable. Whatever you decide to cut, don't cut getting customer feedback during your development process. If you ship something that customers can't use, you can go out of business almost as fast as if you hadn't shipped anything at all."
"Patterns start to emerge in usability research after the first few tests. After five, you're really just hearing all the same stuff over and over again."
"The single greatest mistake you can make at this point is to start off by telling the test subject what you're working on and how great it will be for him. Nothing will bias a session faster than you trying to sell him on your ideas. You're not there to talk. You are there to listen."
"Start off by asking them to show you how they currently perform some tasks that relate to the problem you're trying to solve."
"...this may sound cryptic, but sometimes the best types of problems to solve are the ones that the users don't really know are problems until you fix them."
I recommend this book for anyone working on a startup or even just in general working in web development. Even larger, established web companies need to start thinking more like lean startups in today's digital environment.
"If you get nothing else from this book, please remember these three key points: (1) User research. Listen to your users. All the time. I mean it. (2) Validation. When you make assumptions or create hypotheses, test them before spending lots of time building products around them. (3) Design. Iterate. Iterate. Iterate."
"Climbing to the top of the hill you're on gets you higher, but it doesn't always maximize your altitude. Sometimes you need to find a taller hill."
"It's probably not worth your time to fret and sweat over every single pixel on every single new page, mostly because you should always plan on iterating. When you're a startup, any new feature may be killed or transformed in a week's time."
"...visual design can screw up interaction testing. If your tester has an immediate positive or negative reaction to the visuals, you're going to get different information than you would if she could effectively ignore the visuals. Grayscale wireframes or Balsamiq-style sketches make it much easier to ignore the look and concentrate on the interactions."
"Visual design is how something looks. Interaction design is how something works."
"A useful wireframe, in my opinion, needs to include all the copy, buttons, calls-to-action, and navigation elements of a real product. It doesn't have any visual design yet. That comes later. But it's definitely where you're taking all the elements that you sketched out and making sure that they not only fit together on one screen but that they also hold up throughout an entire feature or product."
"Lean UX always has a measurable goal, and you should always figure out how to measure that goal before you start designing. If you don't, how will you know that your design worked?"
"Trust me, people will forgive ugly faster than they'll forgive unusable. Whatever you decide to cut, don't cut getting customer feedback during your development process. If you ship something that customers can't use, you can go out of business almost as fast as if you hadn't shipped anything at all."
"Patterns start to emerge in usability research after the first few tests. After five, you're really just hearing all the same stuff over and over again."
"The single greatest mistake you can make at this point is to start off by telling the test subject what you're working on and how great it will be for him. Nothing will bias a session faster than you trying to sell him on your ideas. You're not there to talk. You are there to listen."
"Start off by asking them to show you how they currently perform some tasks that relate to the problem you're trying to solve."
"...this may sound cryptic, but sometimes the best types of problems to solve are the ones that the users don't really know are problems until you fix them."
I recommend this book for anyone working on a startup or even just in general working in web development. Even larger, established web companies need to start thinking more like lean startups in today's digital environment.
on June 11, 2015
Wow! Everything I've learnt so far from multiple books and online courses about UX, Lean, and startups is actually covered by this book. If you're just starting out in this world, READ IT FIRST - it will set you on the right path to dig deeper into anything that's most relevant for you at any given moment in your startups lifecycle.
Did I also mention that Laura's writing style is marvelous and full of humor? Had a lot of fun reading this book, and I'm sure you will too. UX doesn't have to be dry or boring.
Did I also mention that Laura's writing style is marvelous and full of humor? Had a lot of fun reading this book, and I'm sure you will too. UX doesn't have to be dry or boring.
on March 2, 2014
Laura Klein, you're awesome. You're funny, you're right, you're to the point and you definitely know what you're talking about. I wish everyone I worked with would read this book before they open their mouth and say "I think we need to do this next."
Great book. As the author's first line states "This book is for entrepreneurs". If you're looking to use data to drive product development and if you're looking to understand user experience for the lean methodology, this book is going to make you want to get up early and crank through the pages with a highlighter and a note pad.
If you want to start a business with any sort of website or web app or mobile app or software whatsoever, read this book.
Great book. As the author's first line states "This book is for entrepreneurs". If you're looking to use data to drive product development and if you're looking to understand user experience for the lean methodology, this book is going to make you want to get up early and crank through the pages with a highlighter and a note pad.
If you want to start a business with any sort of website or web app or mobile app or software whatsoever, read this book.
on July 17, 2015
This was the perfect book for what I needed. I am in the process of validating a market and I needed the guidance in this box. It is fun to read and an easy read but gives you actionable steps to take on your UX journey for anyone developing a user interface.
on August 20, 2013
This book is an absolute must read for early stage startups if they are into product development. Although, I have done product development before, I used to work for bigger companies and I hadn't really understood the best way to go about product development is a resource challenged early stage startup. It turned out to be a bible for me!
on January 7, 2015
i would like to be more only and specific for lean ux and not read again about the lean start up method since anyone who take this book is aware off that. although it is an excellent book to read and rely help a lot !
