NFAIS Annual Conference 2015 REALLY, REALLY RAPID PROTOTYPING: FLASH BUILDS & USER-DRIVEN INNOVATION Alex Humphreys, JSTOR Labs @abhumphreys February 23, 2015
ITHAKA is a not-for-profit organization that helps the academic community use digital technologies to preserve the scholarly record and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways. JSTOR is a not-for-profit digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources. Ithaka S+R is a not-for-profit research and consulting service that helps academic, cultural, and publishing communities thrive in the digital environment. Portico is a not-for-profit preservation service for digital publications, including electronic journals, books, and historical collections.
A new-ish team at ITHAKA Mission: to seek out new concepts and opportunities, to refine and to validate them through research and experimentation. Among our methods: Flash Builds* (or a version of them) * We first heard of Flash Builds from Marty Cagan, describing the work of the Nordstrom Innovation Lab.
CASE STUDY #1: JSTOR SNAP
ONE WEEK IN ANN ARBOR
THE FINISHED PROTOTYPE http://labs.jstor.org/snap
CASE STUDY #2: UNDERSTANDING SHAKESPEARE
PARTNERSHIP W/ FOLGER Folger Shakespeare Library Folger Digital Texts Shakespeare Quarterly Scholars and students JSTOR The full archive run of SQ 2000+ other journals A newly-formed Labs team Objective: demonstrate the value of Folger Digital Texts to scholars and students and demonstrate how it can be cross-referenced with Shakespeare Quarterly. Objective: validate the value of using a primary text as a portal into secondary literature.
THE FINISHED PROTOTYPE http://labs.jstor.org/shakespeare
THE INGREDIENTS
INGREDIENTS A TEAM A diverse team with technical, design and business skills The best products combine technical, design and business innovations toward a single goal Barest expression of that goal = Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Biz Image source: http://uxtraordinary.com/venn-pie-agram/
INGREDIENTS A SPACE TO INNOVATE Cultural Technical Flexible technology that allows for componentization, and continuous deployment Ability to produce, present, augment and query content in a variety of manners (aka data science) A safe-space to fail, either through a Labs team, an A/B test or in-person testing Comfort with uncertainty The time to dedicate to the work eliminate distractions; timed works
INGREDIENTS USERS The ability to show work to users early and often, with the whole team present. User-research skills and experience: - Listening deeply - Having multiple tools, fit for purpose - Knowing what can and can t be learned from a user Hypothesis-creation skills and the discipline to know what you re trying to learn when
INGREDIENTS A PARTNER Seeing through a user s eyes, you see the ecosystem in which your product operates That helps show opportunities / challenges that can t easily be met Partners can help to fill those gaps Our best partnerships have been open, exploratory collaborations
INGREDIENTS A PENCIL
Alex Humphreys AVP, JSTOR Labs ITHAKA THANK YOU http://labs.jstor.org @abhumphreys alex.humphreys@ithaka.org Further Reading Lean Startup, Eric Ries Marty Cagan s Blog: http://svpg.com/articles/ UX for Lean Startups, Laura Klein Lean Analytics, Croll & Yoskovitz
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