How to incorporate UX design in an agile environment

I’ve been studying both UX Design and agile methodologies such as Scrum and eXtreme Programming in the past two years. And I always noticed some similarities between both processes of an agile approach to working on a project and UX Design user-centered design approach, for example both UX Design and Scrum use User Stories and US Mapping. But I never figured out how to actually incorporate a UX Designer in Scrum for example? Should a UX Designer do his/her job before acquiring the product backlog? During each sprint? Can anyone help me understand how can it be done?

1 Like

We use an Agile approach to our work at UXMastery. We create stories for each UX task and incorporate them in the sprint in the same way you do with other tasks. i.e. they don’t do their work first or outside of the Sprint.

Does that make sense?

1 Like

Sort of, seems doable in certain projects. But shouldn’t the UX process be done with before beginning the scrum process sometimes? Or at least before you start sprint 0 or 1, since the backlog at that point contains stories and not tasks, once it’s chopped to tasks I believe it becomes harder to sync the UX process with the scrum process.

2 Likes

I’d say no – it should be done before certain parts of the scrum process. i.e. there are some UX stories as part of a sprint. You don’t have to complete an entire epic across one sprint.

So the UX aspects of Epic1 might be part of Sprint 1. Then the resulting work could be part of Sprint2.

2 Likes

I would love to see a fake simple project, in list/bulleted form - kind of a step by step process for UX/Agile/Scrum. I think it would help a lot of beginners to see the “flow” - or at least, what should be the flow.

7 Likes

I second that. I don’t have much experience in Agile UX, would love to see what it looks like.

1 Like

Here we’re using Agile with some of the team and we expect to expand this methodology to the whole company soon. And (I have no definitive answer here) today we don’t consider the UX deliverables inside the sprint (and I tried) because we don’t have enough time to think about the solution, consider every user scenarios, talk to the developers, test hypotheses, talk to the stakeholders, define the business rules related to the project, make adjustments and release the structure, prototype and interfaces in a two week sprint. The devs would spend most of the time waiting for us. So, by now, we finish all the UX before we start the correspondent sprint. Actually, the POs uses our deliverables to write the stories because we studied the user journey and probably all the scenarios. That’s how we’re working here today perhaps because we’re not structured as multidisciplinary squads yet or perhaps because we wouldn’t be able to work another way even if we had the perfect squad formation. Suggestions are welcome.

3 Likes

This is such great insight. I never thought about how the ux deliverables are not on the same time frame as sprints. So what stage of UX would be suitable for Agile? Post design - iteration stage only?
Cheers @fabricio_kassick

1 Like

@david01 Julia covers it off pretty well in her post above. Does that clear things up or would an example project still be useful?

1 Like

Very good information. I’m open to an actual example - but that reading is a good place to start.

2 Likes

That’s great @jdebari,
this is a very structured way to integrate our work with the Agile teams. I’ll share with people here. Best :wink:

2 Likes

Thanks! Yes, I am in scrum meetings every morning with my team. The one assignment I had so far was to research the best tool we could use for design & prototyping in our environment. I completed this, and now need to give a presentation on how I think the UX/UI process will work in our environment…the process…tools used…so I’m hoping my presentation goes well :wink:

Thanks for this thread. My new employer thinks I’m going to implement Scrum, when I’ve never had the good fortune of working in that environment. I’ve done exhaustive research for him on Scrum and Kanban, as we’re a design agency and contract out development. I really don’t think it will work, but thank you for the examples of the UX sprints needing to happen before the dev sprints. I was not getting that specific information elsewhere, but I suspected that’s how it should go.

Now, a question. Are there ever UX problems discovered after the stories go into the dev sprint? Do you pull designers into the sprint in progress to correct or just push through and then design problem-solve next sprint?

Hi @ref_design - I’m a newbie at this but I would guess that it would depend on several things -

-How big of a design change it is, and how many hours will be required
-How far into the dev sprint they are
-How the team wants to handle these kind of changes - create a process

We are still using sticky notes on a board with 4 “swim lanes” - but we have plans on moving to a digital board at some point by years end. We keep our scrums to 15 minutes and identify:

-What was complete since last scrum
-How many hours did it take for each
-What will be focused on until the next scrum
-Add any new tasks from the “parking lot/backlog” and assign them

At first, admittedly, this all seemed a little much to me - and at times still does - but I’m starting to see the value in keeping everyone on the same page, tracking hours for budget needs, etc. In my previous development life, it was more waterfall, and I wasn’t too involved with the details to this extent. But I think it’s valuable to learn and know, and allows you to contribute to the overall goals.

1 Like

Yes, I’ve done tons of research, as directed. There are a number of creative agencies that use Agile methodologies, but they write more high-level than giving insight into creating an action plan for implementation. I really don’t think it’s right for us, but … try disagreeing with a Chinese boss. The best approach is to present the information clinically and a plan as requested and hope he figures out that it’s probably not going to work on his own.

There are some particulars that I hope to be able to implement. Chinese clients tend to be unsophisticated and like to prove their authority by issuing frequent rush changes, even after installation. At the least, I’d like to use the sprint method to corral this predictable flood of alterations into scheduled iterations. Even updating every Friday for a month after installation would be better than adding a new button every other day, which is how it goes, now. As long as we can get the clients to agree at the start, I think this is doable.

There’s currently nothing but the content designer’s checklist list (who also is the closest to a project manager) to keep track of tasks. I think Kanban is probably better than Scrum for what projects look like here. They’ve dabbled with Trello before I got here, but none of the art directors or content designers kept up with it. I think task boards with rules is also doable.

I’ll check out the book you suggested. Thanks.

Hello @Meetrock @ari_rahmati @david01,

To understand the role of a “Designer” in an agile environment, you need to understand the entire product development lifecycle followed in an agile environment and how a designer plays different roles in different phases of the cycle.

1. Discover

This is the phase wherein requirement gathering happens. This is the phase where all the stakeholders including business team, design team, marketing team would gather and prepare a plan to conduct user research about specific topics which they want to investigate.

The UX Researcher here would conduct user interviews, surveys etc to empathize with their potential users and inquire about users needs and pain points. Based on the data collected from the design research activities, they would come up with User Personas, who are these fictional characters who represent the personalities of their millions of potential users.

Based on these personas and their pain points, Brainstorming will be done to generate ideas and solution which will be converted to “User Stories” in a Product Requirements Document. This document is made so that all stakeholders can consume this document and be aware of the scope of the project.

Yes, the user stories need to be informed from user research, not just hypothetical ones.

2. Design

This is the phase, the Interaction Designer and Graphic Designer would bake the user stories/ functionalities defined in the PRD document to tangible screens. Information Architecture, Interaction Design and Visual Design would be done at this stage.

Information Architecture is about organizing and structuring the information present the application. Sitemaps, Card Sorting, Navigation Design are some of the activities and methods conducted here.

Interaction Design is about making sure users are able to interact with the user interface in the most intuitive way and achieve their goals in the application.

Visual Design is where a designer is concerned about color, typography, visual hierarchy, style guide.

3. Develop
At this stage, the developer will be building and coding the design provided by the Interaction Designer.

Here the designer will be providing UI/UX Consultation to the developers.

4. Testing
At this stage, the software testers will be testing different use cases in the application.

At this point, the designer will conduct Usability Testing, A/B Testing.

This is the typical process which will be followed in an agile environment and how a designers role would change at a different stage to make sure UCD Process and Design Thinking mindset is followed.

This process is different from Lean UX Design Process, where there is less focus on documentation, presentations and is more towards making an MVP in startups.

Agile is more about project management, Lean is more towards getting things done with limited resources and less documentation.

Hope this will help you understand the role of a designer in Agile Environment :slight_smile:

1 Like

Adopting Lean UX implies building a culture of continuous learning. Continuous finding causes the product design process and creates product team members inquisitive about finding better solutions.

Aside from the distinctive UX context, it can be valuable to obtain a baseline knowledge of Lean and Agile themselves. Lean and Agile have different origin stories, and the words themselves can have barely various variations associated with them.

You can embed your UX Designer in the Agile team. Request them to discharge planning, stand-up, retro, and every session where UX might be concerned.