The process starts with your assumptions about – and understanding of – the problem space in question. Assumptions are usually gathered in a workshop or through a group brainstorming session and they basically sum up what you collectively assume or think you know.
You can gather assumptions about who your users are, what the product you’re designing is used for and when, what the most important functions and features will be and so on.
Based on your assumptions, you’ll then create a hypothesis (or multiple hypotheses). For example, you might come up with the following hypothesis:
We believe that online shoppers need to be able to place an order without creating a customer account. Providing this option will increase the number of completed orders / reduce the number of “abandoned cart” incidences. We can prove this if we are able to measure an increase in the order completion rate (which currently stands at 15%).
When writing hypotheses, it’s important that you’re able to set a clear and measurable goal for how each hypothesis can be tested. Otherwise, there’s no way to determine if it’s valid or invalid and therefore worthy of pursuing or not.
Copy sourced from www.uxdesigninstitute.comAs we know, lean UX is about building early and that’s the focus of the “Make” phase. You’ll now create a minimum viable product (MVP), which is essentially the most basic version you will need in order to test your hypothesis and gather initial learnings and feedback.
The form your MVP takes will depend on your hypothesis and what you want to test. Taking the example of our online shopping hypothesis, the MVP could be an interactive prototype of the proposed new checkout process, featuring the additional option to place an order without having to create an account.
Otherwise, an MVP might be a very basic wireframe or a website landing page. Anything that can be created quickly and used to test out your hypothesis.
Copy sourced from www.uxdesigninstitute.comWith your MVP in place, you have something tangible to test and evaluate. In the “Check” phase, you gather feedback on your MVP in order to invalidate or validate your original hypothesis. You can do this through A/B testing, site analytics and a variety of user and usability testing methods.
Based on your learnings, you’ll loop back to phase 1 (“Think”) and proceed accordingly. Maybe you need to scrap the initial hypothesis and explore a different problem or perhaps it’s necessary to generate new ideas and angles for the same hypothesis. Either way, you’ll build on the previous cycle and continue to steer the product towards success.
Copy sourced from www.uxdesigninstitute.com