[UIE Webinar] Lean UX: Forming & Testing Hypotheses with Josh Seiden

Josh Seinden

Interaction Designer & Managing Director, Neo

A light dinner will be provided for the registration fee. The webinar will start promptly at 6:00 PM, preceded by a half hour for socializing, networking, and food. Come early to meet your fellow Triangle UXPAers and talk shop!

It’s easy to talk about features. Fun, even. But easy and fun doesn’t always translate to functional, profitable, or sustainable.

That's where Lean UX comes in-it reframes a typical design process from one driven by deliverables to one driven by data, instead. Josh Seiden has been there, done that-and he's going to show us how to change our thinking, too.

The first step is admitting you don’t know all the answers; after all, who does? You’ll then write hypotheses aimed at answering the question, “Why?”, then run experiments to gather data that show whether a design is working.

You’ll learn to...

Start with a hypothesis instead of requirements

• Move from uncertainty to certainty by testing assumptions about needs and goals
  
• Approach projects as a series of deliberate experiments, instead of a list of fixed features to be implemented.

Write a typical hypothesis

• Write the first test as a means to begin practicing test-driven design
  

• Focus on ideal user or business outcomes, not which features to build

Go from hypothesis to experiment

• Design an experiment to test your hypothesis, and keep that test as simple as possible
  
• Hear examples of Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) others used to test hypotheses
  

Avoid common testing pitfalls

• Break down hypothesis into bite-sized chunks you can actually test
  

• Differentiate market assumptions from project, organizational, or cultural assumptions

• Don’t know what a hypothesis is, why it benefits UX designers, or how to write one
  
• Question whether features are missing and, if so, which users actually need them
  
• Are tired of creating deliverables that don’t make the kind of difference you want them to
  
• Think there must be a data-driven way to design-one that isn’t based on guesswork, yet doesn’t replace designer’s intuition
  

If you want a learning-focused process that rallies your entire team around continuous research--more effective design outcomes--then watch the seminar.

Why Josh?

You’ve heard of Neo, right? No, not The Matrix Neo. Neo the product development consultancy that companies from PayPal to The Weather Channel turn to for testing new ideas -- and finding the ones that work.

Neo is chock full of super smart people from all over the tech industry, and Josh Seiden is both an interaction designer and the managing director of its NYC office. (In fact, Neo acquired Josh’s Lean UX consultancy just months after he launched it; THAT’s how good he is.)

Before that, Josh was the head of product design at Liquidnet and interaction design team lead at Cooper. He also founded the Interaction Design Association and served as its president. Plus, he co-wrote the book on Lean UX. So he’s a skilled master when it comes to data-driven design methodologies, which you’ll soon learn for yourself.

If you still want more from Josh, check out his blog, More Than This, where he covers design and UX topics on a weekly basis. He’s also on Twitter @jseiden.

Location

Capstrat, 1201 Edwards Mill Road, Fourth Floor

Glass Box Meeting Room (Turn left after exiting elevator)

Raleigh, NC 27607

See map: Google Maps