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Hello

Practicing UX

in an Agile Environment

Using Adobe Illustrator

Jonathan Berger, Pivotal Labs, November 2011

Who am I?

  • jonathanpberger on the web
  • Designer
  • Developer
  • Agile Kool-aid Drinker

Why do I have this ridiculous mustache?

foo

http://mobro.co/jonathanpberger

Origin Story

Why am I here?

  • It started with Spot.us
  • I saw what the Agile process did for Devs
  • I wanted it for Designers too.

The Agile Manifesto

  • Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
  • Working software over comprehensive documentation
  • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
  • Responding to change over following a plan

Pivotal Labs

  • We've been doing Rails / TDD since ~2005
  • We're ~160 developers and ~20 support staff.
  • Our clients range from small startups to ginormous companies like Twitter, Best Buy, and Groupon.

The Pivotal Way

  • We're a pair-programming, test-driven development shop.
  • We deliver working software.
  • We also teach sustainable development.
  • (We teach by example.)

So

What does that mean for design?

and

Why use Illustrator?

Why Illustrator?

  • I use it because its powerful, flexible, and I'm fast in it.
    • Individuals and interactions
    • Working software
    • Customer collaboration
    • Responding to change
  • It takes care of business tip-to-tail, from wireframes to VxD mocks, including assets.
  • It's still not perfect because its not built for the web, its crashy, and Adobe builds bloatware.

What's important to keep

in your toolkit?

  • Tools that let you work fast
  • Tools that let you mix fidelity
  • Tools that minimize friction with working software

Phases

of a Project

Phase 1

Green Field

Use Illustrator for

Green Field Wireframes

  • Stay lo-fi
  • Single-state Wireframes
  • Create User Flows from those Wireframes

Wireframes

wire1

Create User Flows

all wireframes

Keep in mind:

  • Annotate liberally!
  • Fidelity matters (comic sans is your friend!)
  • Use lots of symbols, you'll sub them out later.

Annotate liberally!

comments

Externalize

externalize

Use Symbols!

symbols

replace the old

symbols

with the new

symbols

Phase 2

Building Software

Our deliverables are

Working Software.

No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.

Helmuth von Moltke, a 19th-century head of the Prussian army

In-progress projects can

Introduce Screenshots

  • Keeping mocks up-to-date with working software is a waste of time.
  • Use screenshots!
  • Better yet: use firebug!

When building software

Whiteboards are your friend

  • use conversation liberally
  • use whiteboards to memorialize conversations
  • externalize everything on foamcore

Once visual styles are established, create

Living Style Guides

Techniques:

Layers

layers

  • Meta
  • Scratch
  • Comments
  • Content

Using symbols

  • Make repeatable elements into symbols
  • Automatic updates
  • Replace wireframe and mock-up elements w/ screenshots
  • e.g., let's say we've built the Header: DEMO

Screenshots & Firebug

  • Use firebug to modify working software
  • Take a screenshot
  • Put it into your mocks
  • e.g., let's say we want to change some copy: DEMO

Find me at

jonathanpberger@

pivotallabs.com, gmail.com, twitter, forrst, flickr, etc...

Thanks!

Questions?