User centered design for technical projects

Aloka Penmetcha

What’s the point?

● Because technical products are products that have users as well

● Helps you re-orient over user goals● Helps drive business/backlog priorities

Context and Background

User stories before

For Who? Why now?

User stories after

● Business goals● Project Goals - What is success● Lean canvas● Persona Workshop● User Workflow● Assumptions exercise● What can we validate/learn with the hackathon in July● Prioritize current backlog based on goals Release planning● Risks

How did we get there?

We reframed the conversation around users

Lean CanvasWhy? Forced the client think about the business problem he is trying to solve

When?Beginning of the projectPeriodically during the project.

Personas! Why? Forced the team to think about people who will eventually use it

When?Beginning of the project

Rewrite stories

Release Planning

USER stories and testing them

My love for Swagger (a demo)

Let’s talk to the users!

Hackathon User interviews

User interview script

Insights

● Need setup instructions● Do not have enough understanding of the

data coming through (accuracy, how it is stored)

● Examples of good SDKs

Usability testing for the APIs

User research script

Insights

Questions? Thoughts? Interestings?

The end...but wait! some final thoughts coming up

Some final thoughts

● More Dev/PM acceptance● Anchor should expect to be pulled out for

conversations a lot more● Demos aren’t as UI focused