In 2007 a large consumer electronics retailer faced significant business challenges. In pursuit of new modes of strategic flexibility and fast execution, the e-commerce division transformed its culture around Agile principles and the user experience team adapted its practices to the new paradigm. How would increased velocity affect the quality of the functionality produced? How would time-intensive activities like usability research be affected? This paper presents a case study describing successes and failures while integrating continuous research into Agile projects.

Anyone who’s seen a user trying to get to grips with their application knows what a humbling experience it can be. No matter your design experience there’s no substitute for testing with actual users. But the whole user testing process can seem daunting & costly in terms of time, effort & materials. Seeing this Jakob Nielsen proposed a lightweight approach, ‘Guerilla User Testing’, in the mid-nineties. It emphasized what could be done on limited resources by a team committed to providing a decent user experience. Marc & Luke share over 20 years of experience applying this type of technique.