The UX of Minimum Viable Products

This is a short talk I gave at a Hackers & Founders event in Barcelona.

Transcript

1. @ANDERSRAMSAY / #AGILEUX
   The UX of Minimum Viable Products
   by @andersramsay
   

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2. @ANDERSRAMSAY / #AGILEUX
   Hey, what are you working on right now?
   We’re working on our MVP...
   Your what?
   Our Minimum Viable--Valuable?--Product,
   not sure. Anyway, that’s what we’re
   working on.
   Cool, how do you
   go about creating
   a MVP?
   Uh, not totally sure. We’re just sort of
   trying to find a minimum feature set.
   

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3. @ANDERSRAMSAY / #AGILEUX
   “The Hudson Bay Start”
   Fur-trappers in Canada predicting what they will need to
   survive for weeks or months in the Northern Territories.
   

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4. @ANDERSRAMSAY / #AGILEUX
   MVP Design
   Hypothesis:
   - This is my prediction of what I’ll
   need to survive for 2 months in
   the middle of nowhere.
   Experiment:
   - Trek into nearby woods and camp
   out for a few days.
   Measurement/Learning:
   - Did I use more/less food than I
   expected in 3 days? Did I
   discover gear I needed but didn’t
   have with me? etc.
   UX: How do we
   design effective
   experiments?
   

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5. @ANDERSRAMSAY / #AGILEUX
   MVP Design Strategies
   

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6. @ANDERSRAMSAY / #AGILEUX
   Painkiller
   Strategy: Find the biggest pain point that can be removed with the
   least amount of effort.
   Great for: Enterprise systems, esp. when replacing a legacy system.
   

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7. @ANDERSRAMSAY / #AGILEUX
   Fa$t Money
   Strategy: Remove features/content the customer is not directly paying for.
   Great for: Consumer products, esp. with domain-specific content/features.
   Image source: http://www.creativedreamincubator.com/images/products/buynow50.jpg
   

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8. @ANDERSRAMSAY / #AGILEUX
   Turk It
   Strategy: Manually simulate system operations.
   Great for: Products with complex algorithms, back-end operations.
   Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tuerkischer_schachspieler_racknitz3.jpg
   

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9. @ANDERSRAMSAY / #AGILEUX
   Go Ugly Early
   Strategy: Build the functionality first, with just a bare-bones UI.
   Great for: Products in which the selling point is a technical special sauce.
   

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10. @ANDERSRAMSAY / #AGILEUX
    Fake it ‘til you make it (Archetypal Lean Startup landing page)
    Strategy: Once a final product has been envisioned, market it as if
    it’s already completed and measure market interest.
    Great for: Products with a high degree of uncertainty about market interest.
    

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11. @ANDERSRAMSAY / #AGILEUX
    MVP Design Strategies
    Designing MVPs is a core part of Modern UX Practice.
    Will usually be a combination of strategies.
    Light-weight prototypes can be your first ‘Build’ iteration in a
    build-measure-learn cycle.
    

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12. @ANDERSRAMSAY / #AGILEUX
    One MVP Design Pattern
    Collaborative
    Charter
    GOOB!
    Design
    Studio
    X-Pairing
    

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13. @ANDERSRAMSAY / #AGILEUX
    Thanks!
    @andersramsay
    andersramsay.com
    designingwithagile.com
    

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