WHERE TO BEGIN?
THURSDAY 8.24.17

presented by Anna Mendoza at STACK COMMERCE

hello

Starting from Scratch Series

This is being started out of the constant need to reference a checklist when starting a software project!

Starting a software build is often a taxing experience,

with many moving parts.

That’s why I’m sharing this tonight:

How do you begin?

Currently my team and I are building an e-commerce

site for a surf-paddle company called Quickblade.

We’re building it out to launch in December.

I’d love to see the community step in,

and share a project right from scratch

for this series.

contents

PLANNING THE PROJECT
PRODUCT OWNER

MARKET & ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
BDD & USER JOURNEYS

UX & UI: WIREFRAMES & PROTOTYPES

NEXT STEPS

1. PLANNING THE PROJECT

Often times, I’m asked to include myself in the UX build-out

because of my heavy design background, from a codebase

without a spec.

Which of course is counter-intuitive, because software

development is a process that starts with a plan.

fixing the mess

1. PLANNING THE PROJECT

For these kind of situations I end up doing a code review

or audit, and reverse engineer the whole thing.

The codebase gets improved through

“feature branch code reviews”, straightened out with

developers on a whiteboard, or at the very least

documentation of core UX Flows.

fixing the mess

1. PLANNING THE PROJECT

I’m often using Testing Rails for audits

It's got a ton of patterns I can reference and compare.

Recently started trying SourceTree, when I have to

deliver a visual audit. Everybody seems to like this.

Here's a decent checkllist from Thoughtbot, for feature
testing.

a few resources

1. PLANNING THE PROJECT

This is better and my focus for Quickblade.

In these instances, we start with market research and

requirements gathering, explore stakeholder's

behaviors and this ultimately builds the product

offering the software intends to deliver.

starting from scratch

1. PLANNING THE PROJECT

If it’s a ‘blue-ocean’ strategy

( brand new idea with no competition )

then it proceeds with measured risk.

If it’s an innovation, like QuickBlade,

( old idea presented in a new way )

then it’s a question of market adoption from old ways.

all of this has to be decided by someone

1. PLANNING THE PROJECT

The best way to begin is to first identify roles.

2. PRODUCT OWNER

Some of you might already know this,

while others might not think you

have the luxury for this kind of thing.

If you’re talking to the client, you’re in effect

the Product Owner.

Who is the product advocate? The ‘Product Owner’

2. PRODUCT OWNER

The easiest go-to person is often the client,

but the client is often the most non-technical.

What you’ll often get are broad requests with little

notion to how valuable or costly something might

be to develop.

That’s fine, its a place to start.

You might think its the client

2. PRODUCT OWNER

The role of Product Owner is the advocate for the end-user and the client. They end up deciding what features and functionality are essential to the first build, what should be killed or shelved for later.

They ‘manage scope’ & combate ‘feature creep’

2. PRODUCT OWNER

As Product Owner I organized the following for QB:

Researched the Size of Market

Researched the Ethnographic Profiles & Built Personas

Defined Current Initiatives

Defined All User Journeys

Built Out All UX & UI: Wireframes and Mockups

Created Initial Design Systems

Developed the Data Model

Identified the Stack

Next will be BDD Development

2. PRODUCT OWNER

Document the Total Scope:

For the client everything was tracked on 37 Signals: Basecamp.
For development we probably will use Trello. I'm still a fan of the Kanban technique. For the research gathering, I love Workflowy + Google Docs.
For presentation, its InDesign & the Adobe Suite. And for most of the Inital data-modelling we're using Sketch.

all are online

2. PRODUCT OWNER

how we do it

Development & Iteration: Kanban

The classic Kanban is characterized with cards on large visible board, placed in columns displayed vertically and horizontally. A Project can be updated and it's Cards can reflect all changes, as they flow through a development cycle.

HOW KANBAN WORKS

2. PRODUCT OWNER

how we do it

Forecasting & Analytics

Everyone's bandwidth can be observed, helping support the availability of a team member's work protocol. This allows for collaboration between leadership, a key need that helps transact progress effectively.

AGENTS OF CHANGE

2. PRODUCT OWNER

how we do it

Initiatives? An Overview:

Each initiative is defined and organized by the following set of properties, which inform it's goals from a top-level perspective.

WE LISTEN & DOCUMENT

2. PRODUCT OWNER

how we do it

The Properties of an Initiative include:

Title

Description

Goals

Checklist

2. PRODUCT OWNER

how we do it

Tasks? An Overview:

Each task will be organized with a similar set of properties from the same Kanban board. A creative brief will be furnished noting each task's objectives, whom it will be tasked to, deadlines, etc. The properties of each task are often the same as initiatives, yet are more specific to heighten focus.

MORE LISTENING & DOCUMENTING : )

2. PRODUCT OWNER

how we do it

The Properties of a Task include:

Title
Description
Status - Implemented by Swimming Lanes
Proposed Start Date
Creative Brief - this will be furnished for review.
Owner of a Task

3. MARKET & ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

We started by observing the size of marketplace.

Sources used include: Reuters, The Outdoor Foundation,

Nielsen and a ton of Journals, TrekSoft Travel

and 30+ Personas.

let's check it out

3. MARKET & ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

This obviously became important because now the content strategy is going to change.

Distribution model is getting updated, its affecting international trade. Mobile is going to be bigger and the User Stories are going to include women.

the market trippled in 3 Yrs.

3. MARKET & ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

We interviewed easily 30+ people. From Beginners… to Mid-range… to Experts.

Asked what is everybody doing, using and why. And how they’re engaging the market.

created a Pinterest Board

3. MARKET & ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

Typical Stakeholder interviews included:

Name & Gender

Passion Levels

Price Willing to Pay

Belief & Motivators

Content & Inhibitors

Receptors

What they’re looking for and how they find it

3. MARKET & ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

All of this began to shape in the technical requirements and User Stories.

4. UX / UI & USER JOURNEYS

For Quickblade, they were traveling alot and were unavailable.

BIGGEST PROBLEM: Stakeholders are confused on the current site because of too many Product Lines.

SOLUTION: We needed to present all levels of product without alienating anybody. Help Users self-identify fast. Re-work the inventory, and redo their entire schema properly.

let's check it out

Where are the re-usable concepts?

4. UX / UI & USER JOURNEYS

Here I’m just identifying everything, classifying

it and building out every element & function.

Now the global Nav allows everyone to explore the line through different Personas and Practices.

check home out

We're organizing complexity into

simple reusable design patterns

4. UX / UI & USER JOURNEYS

I’m using Cucumber / Gherkin to create these

'Stories'; which already sets us up for BDD.

And that detailed scenarios for acceptance tests to come.

RSPEC MOST LIKELY

4. UX / UI & USER JOURNEYS

It’s up to you to decide how much time you will spend

in product planning and research gathering.

But consider some of the benefits:

It helps you discover the functionality you need to implement

It helps you describe and discuss features with your business partners

It serves as a “to-do list” to help you track progress

It it creates the basis for acceptance testing or integration testing

reduce

5. BDD & PROTOTYPES

For now, we’re still in the acceptance phase on

this job, but we’re probably going to jump into the

prototypes in the next few weeks.

Sometimes I go from SKETCH to InVISION, but lately
if I can describe it, then build a ‘live-style’ guide with
Frontify. I’m good to start prototyping.

hello

Starting from Scratch Series This is being started out of the constant need to reference a checklist when starting a software project!

1. PLANNING THE PROJECT

fixing the mess

1. PLANNING THE PROJECT

fixing the mess

1. PLANNING THE PROJECT

a few resources

1. PLANNING THE PROJECT

starting from scratch

1. PLANNING THE PROJECT

all of this has to be decided by someone

1. PLANNING THE PROJECT

The best way to begin is to first identify roles.

2. PRODUCT OWNER

Who is the product advocate? The ‘Product Owner’

2. PRODUCT OWNER

You might think its the client

2. PRODUCT OWNER

The role of Product Owner is the advocate for the end-user and the client. They end up deciding what features and functionality are essential to the first build, what should be killed or shelved for later.

They ‘manage scope’ & combate ‘feature creep’

2. PRODUCT OWNER

2. PRODUCT OWNER

all are online

2. PRODUCT OWNER

how we do it

The classic Kanban is characterized with cards on large visible board, placed in columns displayed vertically and horizontally. A Project can be updated and it's Cards can reflect all changes, as they flow through a development cycle.

HOW KANBAN WORKS

2. PRODUCT OWNER

how we do it

Everyone's bandwidth can be observed, helping support the availability of a team member's work protocol. This allows for collaboration between leadership, a key need that helps transact progress effectively.

AGENTS OF CHANGE

2. PRODUCT OWNER

how we do it

Each initiative is defined and organized by the following set of properties, which inform it's goals from a top-level perspective.

WE LISTEN & DOCUMENT

2. PRODUCT OWNER

how we do it

2. PRODUCT OWNER

how we do it

MORE LISTENING & DOCUMENTING : )

2. PRODUCT OWNER

how we do it

3. MARKET & ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

3. MARKET & ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

This obviously became important because now the content strategy is going to change.

Distribution model is getting updated, its affecting international trade. Mobile is going to be bigger and the User Stories are going to include women.

3. MARKET & ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

We interviewed easily 30+ people. From Beginners… to Mid-range… to Experts.

Asked what is everybody doing, using and why. And how they’re engaging the market.

3. MARKET & ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

3. MARKET & ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

All of this began to shape in the technical requirements and User Stories.

4. UX / UI & USER JOURNEYS

For Quickblade, they were traveling alot and were unavailable.

BIGGEST PROBLEM: Stakeholders are confused on the current site because of too many Product Lines.

SOLUTION: We needed to present all levels of product without alienating anybody. Help Users self-identify fast. Re-work the inventory, and redo their entire schema properly.

Where are the re-usable concepts?

4. UX / UI & USER JOURNEYS

Here I’m just identifying everything, classifying

it and building out every element & function.

Now the global Nav allows everyone to explore the line through different Personas and Practices.

We're organizing complexity into simple reusable design patterns

4. UX / UI & USER JOURNEYS

I’m using Cucumber / Gherkin to create these

'Stories'; which already sets us up for BDD.

And that detailed scenarios for acceptance tests to come.

4. UX / UI & USER JOURNEYS

5. BDD & PROTOTYPES

I'm going to wrap it up here with

a little prediction: We're probably

going to be using Materialize with

React and installing the whole thing

with YARN.

THANK YOU!

From Scratch No. 1 - How to begin?

More from Anna Mendoza

Starting from Scratch Series

This is being started out of the constant need to reference a checklist when starting a software project!

We're organizing complexity into

simple reusable design patterns