-­‐ Approx  13  years  ago,  I  moved  into  a  sharehouse  in  Fitzroy  VIC  -­‐ Personalities  and  annoying  tendencies  were  not  evident  upfront,  only  noticeable  after  weeks  of  living  together

-­‐ Imagine  if  we  could  test  out  the  waters  with  everything  in  life  -­‐ The  iterative  style  of  agile  can  be  a  great  way  to  test  the  water  with  your  customer,  learn  early  on  before  committing  completely  -­‐ Similar  to  my  sharehouse  experience  -­‐  however  I  had  to  commit!

-­‐ Fast  forward  quite  a  few  years,  I  find  myself  working  at  software  company  working  as  UX  Designer  on  Desktop  software  -­‐ Implementing  a  new  feature  -­‐  set  to  move  customers  from  an  existing  manual  process  to  a  digital  one  -­‐ Potential  for  huge  success  but  had  to  GET  IT  RIGHT  (no  pressure)  -­‐ Replacing  their  non  digital  process  with  something  automated  was  met  with  fear  and  trepidation  -­‐ I  facilitated  regular  usability  testing  sessions  but  wanted  to  know  what  customers  felt  after  using  this  feature  for  weeks

-­‐ Decided  on  running  diary  study  with  product  owner  and  arranged  an  early  release  of  our  software  with  the  development  team,  just  for  our  small  group  of  diary  study  participants  

-­‐ I  personally  recruited  approx.  20  participants  (through  using  our  in-­‐house  CRM)  -­‐ Participants  were  located  all  around  Australia,  did  not  meet  them  in  person  -­‐ Skype  introduction,  what  to  expect  being  involved  in  my  diary  study  (fill  in  diary  every  time  you  use  the  new  feature)  -­‐ Built  up  rapport  with  the  participants  so  they  felt  very  comfortable  with  me

-­‐ Actual  paper  diaries,  colored  covers  for  each  week  to  help  with  admin  -­‐ Sent  nice  parcel  to  participants,  complete  with  stamped  self  address  envelopes  at  beginning  of  research  -­‐ Diaries  were  posted  back  weekly  -­‐ Ran  for  6  weeks  -­‐ Gift  cards  as  thanks  –  $100  to  one  participant  that  sent  diary  back  on  time  every  week,  $250  to  overall  most  diligent  and  

comprehensive  feedback  throughout  6  week  period

-­‐ Team  loved  physical  diaries  coming  in  regularly,  kept  team  motivated  and  interested  -­‐ Ripple  effect  through  office,  lots  of  buzz  -­‐ High  profile  project  in  general,  diaries  hanging  around  helped  provide  feedback  to  stakeholders  and  other  parts  of  the  business  who  

may  have  an  interest,  self  serve  information  -­‐ Team  and  stakeholders  felt  closer  to  customers,  could  emphathise  -­‐ Easy  to  implement  a  beta  approach  to  software  releases,  diaries  helped  show  importance  of  early  feedback  and  iterating

-­‐ Weekly  backlog  grooming  sessions  with  business  analyst  and  product  owner  to  reprioritise  backlog  -­‐ Some  of  the  things  (UX  debt)  I  had  to  compromise  on  previously  were  bumped  up  in  priority,  based  on  customer  annoyance  from  

diary  participants

-­‐ I’m  currently  planning  another  diary  study  at  the  moment  -­‐ More  prepared  to  be  on  call  for  help  -­‐ Have  a  developer  ready  to  help  troubleshoot  -­‐ Have  plans  in  place  for  a  release  to  fix  unforeseen  issues  -­‐ 6  weeks  felt  a  bit  long,  will  run  for  4  weeks  next  time  -­‐ Sound  out  preferred  methods  of  providing  feedback  early  on  to  avoid  wasted  effort  in  preparation

-­‐ Definitely  give  it  a  go,  pros  outweighed  the  cons  -­‐ Fitted  into  agile  really  well  -­‐ Old  school  style  had  HUGE  benefits  amongst  the  team,  involvement,  motivation,  self  discovery  -­‐  worth  the  effort  -­‐ Also  was  great  for  our  product  and  we  had  a  very  successful  release  to  market

-­‐ Please  get  in  touch  if  you  run  a  diary  study  in  your  own  agile  project!