Lean vs Delightful UX: how does AI fit in?

Lean vs Delightful: are they mutually exclusive? What is the best of both worlds? And how does AI fit in?

I wanted to explain the key points of each approach for both recruiters and teams.

Lean UX design is a methodology that embraces iterative, collaborative, and efficient processes to deliver products quickly.?

It draws inspiration from Lean Startup and Agile development principles, emphasizing continuous learning and experimentation.?

Key characteristics of Lean UX design include:

1. User-Centered Approach: Lean UX places a strong emphasis on understanding user needs and preferences through research, testing, and feedback loops.??
2. Cross-functional Collaboration: Lean UX encourages close collaboration among designers, developers, and stakeholders. The goal is to foster a shared understanding.
3. Minimalistic and Focused Design: Lean UX prioritizes simplicity and functionality, aiming to deliver the core features that address user needs without unnecessary complexity. It emphasizes creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to gather feedback and validate assumptions early in the design process.

Things you can expect from a Lean UX Designer:

• Rapid Iteration: By embracing an iterative approach, Lean UX enables teams to test and refine ideas quickly, resulting in faster product development cycles and reduced time to market.
• Cost Efficiency: Lean UX minimizes waste by focusing on essential features. It’s all about creating the MVP (minimal viable product) but one based on user feedback. Skipping user research is a shortcut that will create a useless MVP.
• Data-Driven Decision Making: Through continuous testing and feedback, Lean UX empowers teams to make informed decisions based on real user data, increasing the chances of creating successful and user-centric products.

How AI can help lean design: At Aktana, AI gathered vast quantities of data and provided suggestion on planning trips to clients as well as what to discuss for various meetings.

Incorporating AI can basically allow the user to SKIP various decision making processes and instead be presented with ready made solutions.

Because of this, it saves a lot of coding time and allows UX design to shift focus towards a design that is more about presenting possibilities rather than filling out forms.

Intuition allows AI to speed up reiterative tasks and the designer can design around this to create a simplified UI for the user.?

AI can also use NLP to gather user feedback during the user research phase and provide quick feedback on A/B prototype testing.?

So here we have a responsive design methodology based on good research. We know what the user wants to do. What more do we need?

Well, let’s consider the human who is using it. User feedback has clarified WHAT the user needs. But not how we deliver the goods. This is where Delightful comes in.

Your product may be used every day or at crucial junctures or by a user base that is or is not experienced.

Depending on who they are, the experience to get to what they want may end up very painful or even impossible.?

Whereas it should be something that feels like it’s helpful, speeds up their task or automates what is tedious.

When something makes us happy and feels like it lightens our load instead of filling us with fear or befuddlement, that’s a delightful experience.

Avoiding UX mistakes and putting a great deal of effort into flattening the learning curve is how we create delightful design.

We take advantage of the metaphors of what is familiar, simplify what appears to be complex, and automate what we can.

Last of all, we don’t information dump. A cluttered UI is decision overload and a tired user is a grumpy user.

And a grumpy user leaves.

So, for a brief description, delightful UX design aims to go beyond mere usability to create a sense of delight, surprise, and joy. It hooks us. Inspires us.

Key characteristics of Delightful UX design include:

1. Emotional Connection: Delightful UX seeks to understand and address the emotional needs of users. It understands that feedback can encourage the user.

1. Attention to Detail: Delightful UX pays meticulous attention to the finer details of interaction and visual design.?

Microinteractions, animations, and personalized experiences are leveraged to create memorable moments for users.

Yes, this goes beyond MVP.? But it is an extra step that keeps users coming back. This is of course something that we need to judge on a case by case basis.

Certain details are worth it or easy to implement. Others will trip up your team and are distracting. This is where UX is an art rather than a science.

1. Innovation and Creativity: Delightful UX encourages designers to think outside the box and explore innovative ideas that can differentiate the product or service from competitors.?

It embraces creativity to surprise and captivate users.

Remember: Delightful experiences create a strong resonance within the user. And beautiful designs, rightly or wrongly, impress the user as being more efficient.

Benefits of Delightful UX Design:

• User Engagement and Loyalty: Delightful experiences leave a lasting impact on users, fostering emotional connections and driving loyalty.?

Users are more likely to advocate for products that consistently delight them. We are emotional creatures. And we have emotions towards our everyday objects.

With AI, we are now expecting more interactions that feel human from our products.

Personalization, done poorly, can feel invasive. Done right, recommendations can feel wonderfully efficient and time saving.

• Brand Differentiation: In competitive markets, a focus on delightful UX sets products apart by offering unique experiences that resonate with users.?

It can become a key differentiating factor for businesses in a sea of similar competitors.

• Increased User Satisfaction: Delightful UX design goes beyond meeting functional needs.?

It strives to exceed user expectations, leading to higher levels of user satisfaction and a positive brand perception.

Again, with AI, we can offer up more precise recommendations that are based on what we have gleaned about the user.?

Striking the Balance:

While Lean UX and Delightful UX may seem distinct, they are not mutually exclusive. Some might say that Delightful comes after Lean.

I’m not so sure.? Each step needs to be taken in a specific direction in order not to needlessly reiterate. Each step needs to be steered by both factors.?

To be perfectly honest, I also think this balance may depend on the size and budget of the team. It's not just intent and skill. It must match the scope and budget of the client. Creating a design that results in so much expenditure / manpower that the client cannot deliver to market is a horrible thing. Moreover, it is an oblivious move on the part of an individual whose purpose is to notice things.

Certain aspects of Delightful UX are easy to implement and simply require thoughtfulness on the part of the UI designer. But others require a great deal of coding energy. And the more moving parts, the more that can break down. The wise UX designer knows the cost of various patterns because they work with their team in a seamless and coordinated manner. Or, conversely, they are very aware of the time cost of implementation but able to negotiate the situation to prioritize the necessary and put the rest into a second phase of completion.

Striking the right balance between the two approaches is crucial for creating exceptional user experiences because if the product is never delivered, it's not going to have a chance to be exceptional. It will be stillborn.

In summary, Lean UX provides a foundation of user-centered design, iterative processes, and efficiency while Delightful UX adds the emotional appeal and creative elements that elevate experiences to a delightful level and, crucially, differentiate you from competitors.

But I will add this caveat: they need to be applied at the same time.?Many demand Lean and consider Delightful for Phase 2. This results in Delightful being smeared on afterwards, visual frosting. The cost and efficacy of Delightful should be discussed from the start. Why? Because certain decisions for Delightful UX will affect the flow in a profound way.? It may define the start point and the end point. It may define the technology you choose, if you add AI or not, and if you are willing to go with a certain platform or not.

So finding this balance requires understanding the target audience, the context of use, and the goals of the product or service before you start designing.

A deeper understanding of user needs and product goals and project scope allows teams to identify areas where delightful experiences can be integrated without compromising the core functionality or timeline.

But again, the UX designer has to be in synch with their team and ask them which decisions are efficient and which are frivolous. A small item may require a great deal of time or, given the right technology, be 'free' if there is a large library. The cost may depend on the savviness or effectiveness of your team members and their curiosity. Driven people are curious because they want to achieve more in the same amount of time. They find the tools and use all the tools. Make sure your team is comprised of the sort of people who use a swiss knife rather than a hammer.

In our current economy, we can’t do everything. Neither time nor effort is limitless. But creativity is not a frivolous thing. Delight may save your product. So having a clear cut understanding of what tasks take and which tasks will save your product is very important.?

All this requires communication and cooperation between product managers, programmers and the UX. No one is leading but everyone is learning from one another. In short, a disconnected UX designer is not a useful asset. They will waste the team’s time.?A responsive designer

is what you need. The result is like a haiku: more beautiful because it creatively delivers, using the constraints as a challenge. This is harder than simply ignoring the constraints and delivering something that does not fit the person.

Clothes are cut to fit or off the rack. Some are cut to fit the team's abilities. Others are cut to fit the client's expectations. Others are cut to fit the end user's desires. So bespoke may mean a variety of things and result in a variety of different objects. Aligning across these three will allow you to actually bring an effective product to market. Working against it in some sort of hermetic fashion may result in something nice to look at for your portfolio or aligns to UX principles but will not achieve the long goal: the success of your product.

Conclusion:

Do both but let the scope of the Delightful be clear to all parties and allow it to help steer your course from the start. Let AI create less painful processes and offer more personalized options for your user. You may find that you can skip various stages of your workflow, particularly ones that require user research.

Pay attention to the possibility of intuiting and automating: these is the forte of AI.

Use AI for Lean UI to precisely gauge user needs by expediting user feedback collation and automate parts of forms.

Use Delightful UI and AI to further personalize the experience and keep your users loyal without appearing invasive.

But make sure your UX designer works with the team to understand?

the cost of every task so that it’s viable and delightful, not bloated or out of budget.?

And meow on!

Helen