LeanUX: a journey without baggage

Light and happy on my feet, upon arrival in Barcelona (2007).

I don’t check luggage and I love developers. I’ll tell you what the two have to do with each other.

I came across a wonderful post about travelling without baggage. It highlights 4 ways to travel light: bring nothing, fill only your pockets, keep only a day bag or borrow everything you need. He says:

I’ve done it. Traveling with no bags is gloriously liberating. You move fast, close to the ground, spontenously.  You feel unleashed, undefined by your possessions. It is just you and the world. I am convinced that you think different when you have less stuff to manage. You learn a lot, fast.

Many of those same ideals are celebrated in recent posts I have read about lean ux (a method for interaction designers). It is reflective of agile development methods and a step forward from the slow waterfall process.

Lean UX is the practice of bringing the true nature of our work to light faster, with less emphasis on deliverables and greater focus on the actual experience being designed.

So what can travelers and designers learn from one another?

• Be lightweight. Be agile and quick on your feet. Limiting yourself to physical artifacts (wireframes or big bags) plant you to the ground and can limit your scope
• Be aware. Continuously be in a meditative, reflective state where you are learning from yourself, your environment, the people around you and your process. Then, obviously, iterate. Do whatever you were doing before, better, or at least differently if it wasn’t working.
• Be flexible and open. Writing a committed, formal plan before the actual process begins detracts from the opportunity to discover the unknown and unexplored.
• Spend time and money only on the essentials. Living with little or no waste often lends itself to having more time, energy and money for what and when it is most important.
• Learn the local language. Do as the Romans…or the ruby developers…do. Immerse yourself in the environment. Learn it, live it, and use what you already know to make smart decisions.
• Focus on experience. Do this for your journey, or the people you are designing for will have. Experience shall be a high priority.

If you can do a week in a backpack, you can do a month. If you can do a month, you can do a year. I once went somewhere with only a purse. I’d like to take on the travel bloggers’ challenge and bring nothing with me at all. I’m working on a non-smelly solution.

As for lean ux? I’m cutting the fat a little bit each and every day. But it’s really going to take a team effort.