At Jackrabbit, we have been focused on the growing need for UX for some time. We have been running Lean UX engagements with some great folks here in town, and in doing so we have figured out a few things that work well for our team and clients.

Lean UX is meant to be a lot of trial and error, and knowing what to do when you fail is a huge part of making the right decisions. You need to understand where you went wrong, have a process for tracking and measuring the feedback, and spend time discussing it with your team – then it is time to start making decisions and repeat the process until you get it right. This can and should be a very quick process – the tools for creating prototypes and user testing have become much more efficient and we should all follow suit. Below is a list of Lean UX tools that have made a difference in our process:

Lean UX Prototyping Tools:

Sketch 3

– Creating mockups and/or wireframes has never been more efficient than with Sketch 3.

Marvel App

– A perfect tool for Lean UX. Quickly produce clickable prototypes, revise with no problems, sync your design files with Marvel through Dropbox and download for offline use. We have used many other valuable tools here, but efficiency is a high priority so we generally stick with Marvel.

Pixate

– Great tool for showing a client and/or developer how animations and transitions will work within your app. If you have more time, there is a ton of value in prototyping with Xcode to use native animations; that way implementation is much more clear.

Lean UX User Testing Tools:

Mechanical Turk

– Great tool. For more info, read here.

Usertesting.com

– Great tool.

Lookback.io

– Another great tool, awesome mode is awesome. Check it out here.

Survey Monkey

– Surveys don’t get the love they deserve. Survey Monkey is great, but not cheap if you’re looking to get completed surveys/tests. Google Forms is another good alternative – and you can’t go wrong with simply asking a friend or co-worker for 5 minutes of their time.

Reddit

– Starting conversations on sub forums are a great way to get to know targeted users and gain quality insight – be careful about spam because shadow ban is a real thing!

Hopefully you get some value from these products, and don’t get too comfortable with which tool you use – we constantly experiment with new tools and processes to make us more efficient. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter if you have any Lean UX tips of your own. And remember that iteration is key!