UX DESIGN WITH DISTRIBUTED TEAMShow to ideate, prototype & research together remotely

Johannes Baeck - @jbaeck - johannesbaeck.com

UX Camp Hamburg - August 2015

Hi, I'm Johannes

• M.A. International Information Management

• UX Consultant & Designer at usability.de (before: Aperto Berlin, IBM)

• Lecturer User-centered Designat the University of Hildesheim

• UX Design Mentor at CareerFoundry

• Maker of Music at the piano and with my ukulele

@jbaeck

Lately, I have been working more and more with distributed teams

Hannover

Berlin Pune

Hamburg

Fürth

Nürnberg

Lately, I have been working more and more with distributed teams

London Hannover

San Francisco

New York

And yes I have been in awful conference calls

“A conference call in real life”https://youtu.be/DYu_bGbZiiQ

My recent experience with distributed teams has been quite good!

!

There are many types of distribution

All distributedOne/some remote Teams in different locations

inspired by James Kalbach (http://blog.mural.ly/remote-design-collaboration-survey-results-part-1/)

Some all-distributed startups have been designing great products

So how can we make user experience design with distributed teams work?

?

Let’s have a closer look at our process

User Research & Testing

Planning & IdeationPrototyping & Design

Communication& Team Work

Planning & Ideation with Distributed Teams

Ideation sessions using shared virtual whiteboards

Distributed agency Hanno uses virtual sticky notes in mural.ly for remote design thinking ideation sessions.

https://logbook.hanno.co/remote-design-thinking-with-murally/

Designers at EightShapes use document cameras and screen sharing to see what their teammate is sketching in real time.

Sharing paper sketches remotely with document cameras

http://www.eightshapes.com/blog/2011/08/19/sharing-sketches-remotely/

Co-located workshops as a starting point for remote collaboration

An effective design studio session at the beginning of a project can set the stage for further remote team work.

Prototyping & Design with Distributed Teams

https://flic.kr/p/89qQcz

Hovering ADs

hoveringartdirectors.tumblr.com

fallback when nothing else works out

Show, don’t tell — always have a flexible screen sharing stack available

for this one corporate client

standard for internal use

new standard for corporate clients?

MY CURRENT SETUP

Let stakeholders directly interact with the design you are talking about

InVision LiveShare gives every participant a cursor and the possibility to directly comment inside the design layout

Axure Team Projects make both remote and non-remote work easier

Axure Team Projects let designers work together in one file with version control.

Set up a workable spec workflow and adapt to developer tools

UX Design Team

Dev TeamProduct

Management

EXAMPLE SETUP

JIRA Agile Board for functional spec

and clarification

Confluence Wiki for requirements and research data

Hosted Axure prototype incl. visual design spec

with version history

User Research & Testing with Distributed Teams

Why remote user research?

• Reach globally distributed users in their natural environment

• Save time and money (do more iterations)

• Have more research tools in your toolbox

• Moderated (e.g. screen-sharing)

• Self-moderated / Automated (e.g. usertesting.com)

• Diary studies

Involve remote stakeholders by streaming research sessions

Dubai

Stakeholder Location D

Test Participant Location B

User Researchers Location A

Stakeholders Location E

Scr

een

Sh

arin

g

Streaming

Before you start with remote research

• Know your audience(are they tech-savvy? how well do they speak your language?)

• Prepare for technology and connectivity issues

• People may behave differently remotely (scheduling: people less committed to being there, trust: “can you control my computer?”)

• Combine with contextual interviews or lab usability tests for better results — if possible

Communication & Team Work with Distributed Teams

https://flic.kr/p/bra8Y4

Be aware of your remote constellation and deliberately rethink your process

- Leif Singer (iDoneThis)

On a high level I think just being aware that you need to have a remote strategy is important. Don't assume that things will work the same as in a colocated situation. Don't assume that it will just work. Try to communicate more than you'd actually need to. Commit fully, or not at all.

http://www.pajamas.io/leif-singer-idonethis/

Learn to choose your mode of communication wisely

Mail / IM / JIRA

Audio Call

Video Call

Co-located Workshop

Building trust and relationships

Exploring big ideas

Tackling complex problems

Getting “routine” work done

Following a “maker schedule”

Clarifying urgent issues

Build and keep connections

Virtual presence Sqwiggle shows a snapshot of

each team member which updates throughout the day

In-person meetups Distributed team at Zapier

on a company retreat

https://zapier.com/learn/the-ultimate-guide-to-remote-working/how-build-culture-remote-team / www.sqwiggle.com

Balance remote / non-remote meetings — prepare & facilitate!

- Jason Fried (Basecamp)

By rationing in-person meetings, their status is evaluated to that of a rare treat. They become something to be savored, something special.

http://37signals.com/remote/

But why should I care? Let’s just avoid working with distributed teams altogether…

?

Why thinking about your remote ux process might prove useful

• You might not be able to avoid working remotely - so make the most of it!

• You get access to more users for user research and you can involve more stakeholders

• Your process becomes more flexible — do more iterations (e.g. ideation sessions)

Thanks!

Let’s connect

• twitter.com/jbaeck

• xing.to/jbaeck

• de.linkedin.com/in/johannesbaeck