You can launch a new app or website in days by piecing together frameworks and hosting on AWS. Implementation is no longer the problem. But that speed to market just makes it tougher to confirm that your team is actually building the right product.

Ideal for agile teams and lean organizations, this guide includes 11 practical tools to help you collaborate on strategy, user research, and UX. Hundreds of real-world tips help you facilitate productive meetings and create good collaboration habits. Designers, developers, and product owners will learn how to build better products much faster than before.

Table of Contents

Part I: Design and Collaboration

Chapter 1: The Elements of Design: Think-Make-Check and the Four Models

Chapter 2: Fidelity: Check the Right Things with the Right People

Chapter 3: The Elements of Collaboration: Shared Understanding, Inclusion, and Trust

Chapter 4: Collaboration in Practice: Frame, Facilitate, and Finish

Part II: Project Strategy

Chapter 5: The Strategic Landscape

Chapter 6: Identify Project Goals with Goal Mapping

Chapter 7: Identify a Concrete Vision for Success

Chapter 8: Document and Share Project Goals and Vision

Part Ill: Users

Chapter 9: Users and User Research

Chapter 10: Identify Users with the Bull's-Eye Canvas

Chapter 11: Explore User Attributes with the Profile Canvas

Chapter 12: User Needs and Preferences with the Attribute Grid

Chapter 13: Document and Share User Models

Part IV: Interactions

Chapter 14: Elements of Interactions

Chapter 15: Identify What to Build with Touchpoint Maps

Chapter 16: Understand How Products Fit Together with Journey Maps

Part V: Interfaces

Chapter 17: The Visible and Invisible Parts of an Interface

Chapter 18: Design Interfaces with 4-Corners

Chapter 19: Strategies for Sketching Interfaces

Chapter 20: Choose the Right Interface Model: Wireframes, Comps, or Prototypes?

Part VI: Checks

Chapter 21: Checks (and Balances)

Topics include:

Foundations for collaboration and facilitation: Learn how to work better together with your team, stakeholders, and clients

Project strategy: Help teams align with shared goals and vision

User research and personas: Identify and understand your users and share that vision with the broader organization

Journey maps: Build better touchpoints that improve conversion and retention

Interfaces and prototypes: Rightsize sketches and wireframes so you can test and iterate quickly

About the Author

Austin Govella is an Experience Director with Avanade Digital where he helps enterprises reinvent how they connect with employees and customers. Prior to Avanade, Austin worked for Comcast Interactive Media where he worked on early versions of Comcast Xfinity. In 2009, he co-authored the second edition of Information Architecture: Blueprints for the web with Christina Wodtke for New Riders/Peachpit, and he’s spent the last few years studying how agile teams, lean companies, and user experience designers can work better together.

Austin Govella has designed successful user experiences for the web and mobile since 1998.