Lean UX

Lean UX is a strategy for incorporating UX that works well with Agile software development.

Inspired by Lean Startup and Agile development theories, it's the practice of bringing the true nature of design work to light faster, in a collaborative, cross-functional way with less emphasis on deliverables and a greater focus on the actual experience being designed. -- Jeff Gothelf,

Rather than focusing too much on creating separate design deliverables, the focus is more on a leaner set of activities that improve the experience of the software that we are creating. Additionally, design activities are collaborative and leverage the cross-functional team to generate ideas and contribute different perspectives on feasibility, viability of different approaches.

Shared understanding is key to reducing the amount of documentation needed. Tactics for collaboration, building shared understanding, and testing ideas with less waste (from Getting Out of the Deliverables Business):

• Solve problems together - teams are more motivated and productive building solutions that they collaborated on than those that were handed off
• Utilize sketching - get teams building shared understanding of the problems and each other by visualizing their thinking and seeing each others work
• Utilize prototyping - an experience, not a document. The simpler the better. Once validated, demo to the team - the team can start working with no additional deliverables needed
• Pair up - designers and developers should work together. Collaborate together to tweak the experience in working code. Builds trust and learning to work better together.
• Style Guides - build an asset library (with code) with all of the pieces of your UI. This makes solved problems repeatable and increases consistency.

Team techniques:

• Design Studio Workshops are a lean and effective way to incorporate collaboration from multiple perspectives into design, leveraging multiple brains and being inclusive of perspectives that have insight into feasibility risks