Lean UX

Chapter 2. Principles

At the heart of Lean UX, you’ll find a core set of principles. These principles cover process, collaboration, management, and more. Teams guided by all these principles will get the most out of the Lean UX approach. Start with these principles to get your teams pointed in the right direction, and keep them in mind as you start to implement the Lean UX processes I describe later in this book. You will inevitably have to adjust the Lean UX processes to fit them into your organization, and the principles explained in this chapter will provide guidance to you for that work.

Ultimately, if you’re able to put these principles to work, you’ll find that you will change your organization’s culture. Some will have more impact than others and will be more difficult to push through. Others will be easier to act on. Regardless, each principle detailed here will help you build a product design organization that is more collaborative, more cross-functional, and a more useful fit for today’s reality.

The Three Foundations of Lean UX

Lean UX stands on three foundations. The first foundation is design thinking.

Tim Brown, CEO and president of legendary design firm IDEO, described design thinking as “innovation powered by...direct observation of what people want and need in their lives and what they like or dislike about the way particular products are made, packaged, marketed, sold, and supported...[It’s] a discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s ...