Great introduction for people who don't really know much about UX Design. It was well written, pretty funny, and valuable. Only downside for me was that it seemed a little bit repetitive. Still worth the read though!

The introduction of the book talked about what Lean UX is and isn’t. It was compared to Agile Design and User-Centered Design, which meant nothing to me, to be honest. The actual definition was irrelevant to why I was reading this book - I care more about the practice and benefits of Lean UX. But the rest of the book got into the meat of that.

Lean UX can be summarized into 3 principles:

1. Do research. Ask questions, make hypotheses.
2. Validate. Answer questions, test hypotheses.
3. Iterate. Take answers and data, and then make adjustments.

Research is extremely important not just because it tells you whether your product or service is viable, but because it saves you time and money. The key to Lean UX is doing research and avoiding problems before they come up. Don't waste your resources.

"Lean UX isn’t about adding features to a product, it’s about figuring out which metrics drive a business.”

The author talked about the 2 different kinds of research you can do: quantitative and qualitative. "Quantitative research tells you what your problem is. Qualitative research tells you why you have that problem."

Quantitative research is about getting statistically significant data about a potential feature or workflow - like A/B testing. Qualitative research is about listening to what the user has to say. You have to pay attention to what they do and how they use your product. Looking over someone's shoulder while they use your product is a great way to do user research.

The best way to figure out if you product is any good is to hand your product over to the people and observe how they use it. The worst way is to ask people if they would use it. The main reasons for this are because we as consumers don't really know what we want and our dollars speak louder than our words.

Another thing I liked from this book was this set of questions we should ask when determining if a landing page has good UX:

1. What does the user think this product does?
2. Who does the user think the product is for?
3. Can the user figure out how to get the product?

It seems simple, but those questions are golden. I think they apply not just to UX designers and marketers, but also to authors, video producers, and a whole slew of other people. Think about The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career by Reid Hoffman. Make sure you can answer these questions about yourself as a professional.

Another important aspect of UX design is making sure that you're starting with problems, not solutions. Bad starting point = "Let's add commenting functionality to the product page!" Good starting point = "Users aren't able to communicate with each other, which affects their engagement with the product."

All in all, good book. This is extremely accessible to lay people and most valuable to anyone working in the startup realm (especially marketers and business dev folks). If you're already a UX designer or you've read a fair amount of stuff on UX, you probably won't find this novel at all.