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19 whiteboard and take-home design challenges for UX designers

During an interview for a UX designer role, you might be set a design challenge. UX design challenges aren’t meant to intimidate you – they are all about seeing your process in action. In this post, we share some tasks to try out before your next job interview.

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Interviewing for a UX design job is already challenging. Add to it the pressure of completing a take-home design challenge in six hours or less mid-week. Or – worse – performing in front of an entire panel during a whiteboard interview.

It doesn’t have to be so scary, though. How can you remove some of the fear? Practice. Despite what your biggest fears are telling you, UX design challenges during the interview process aren’t meant to intimidate you. They were created to help employers evaluate your approach to design problems.

The UX design challenge is all about your process. No one expects you to come up with one fantastic answer to the challenge because there is no one correct answer. They’re expecting you to show your approach to the problem.

Design challenges during the interview process are created for a reason. The challenge will be written in a way that helps hiring managers understand how you’d approach a problem you’re unfamiliar with, see your process and check your cultural fit within the organisation. Design challenges are a simulation of the work you would do within the company you’re applying to.

Are you ready to practice? First, let’s talk about what you’ll face in a challenge. Then, we’ll cover some examples so you can prepare for your big challenge day.

What is a whiteboard UX design challenge?

Whiteboard challenges are usually limited to 30 minutes. Sometimes, you’ll get one hour to complete your challenge. These are done in front of the interview team. During a whiteboard challenge, your interviewers will give you a brief prompt. Then you’ll give them insight into your process.

Whiteboard interviews allow you to collaborate with the interview team, which will often also be your co-workers if you’re hired. Plus, they can see your approach to design happening in real-time.

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What is a take-home UX design challenge?

A take-home UX design challenge is usually done at home – hence “take-home.” Employers will give take-home design challenges to give you more time to dive deeper into the problem and devise a solution end-to-end.

Your interviewer will give you a brief assignment. Usually, you’ll get about a week to finish a take-home assignment. Most employers will give you an estimated time to complete the challenge. It can take three to six hours to finish your take-home assessment. Often, though, a take-home challenge can take longer than the company estimated.

UX design whiteboard challenge examples

1. Speed Costco checkout

“We want to improve the Costco customer experience by eliminating the long lines at checkout. We’ve decided a self-checkout process is our solution but we want to do better than the typical self-checkout at grocery stores. Our research has shown they’re even slower than the usual checkout lanes.”

Find the entire prompt on 100 Days of Design

2. Bank chatbot “You are a design director for a large national bank. Your bank wants to be ready to launch an app that will allow your customers to access their account information via a chatbot. How do you approach the challenge of providing information via a series of requests?”

3. Jeans “Shopping for jeans and other form-fitting apparel online could be time-consuming and frustrating. It’s hard to compare different styles and it’s hard to know for sure how they will fit. It’s a disappointing experience when you have to return an item that doesn’t fit quite right. How can you help customers select the style of jeans that they’re looking for in the right size?”

Find the entire prompt on UX Challenge

4. Elevator lobby

“Our elevators work great, however, with over 2500 people using our elevators every day, we need a better system to get everyone to the right one.”

5. Subscription fees “It’s hard to keep track of all the products and services that we have subscribed to every month. All we see is money deducting from our accounts, sometimes from services that we don’t need anymore. How can you design a product which helps manage subscriptions?”

6. Time machine

“We’ve invented an app that is easy to download onto your smartphone or smartwatch. It allows you to travel to any time in the past or future. But we’re having trouble designing the interface.”

7. Pet watch “No matter how much we love our pets, we still need to leave home to go to work, travel, run errands… leaving our pets home alone and sad. How can you enable pet owners to interact with their pets when they’re not at home?”

8. App for kids

“We run a bespoke toy company and want to build an app for kids to design their own toys (which we will build).”

9. Invoices “Managing multiple clients and projects is a part of running a business as a freelancer. However, sometimes clients don’t pay on time. How do you help freelance business owners keep track of payments from their clients and make sure that they receive payments from clients promptly for every project?”

10. Car locator “We have over 15,000 employees and all of their cars on our main campus. Employees have been ‘losing’ their cars in the lot. They forget which of the 5 giant parking lots they parked in and are wandering around clicking their door alarms to find their cars. The noise pollution at the end of the day is terrible. We already have a company app. We want to add a feature to help employees find their cars.”

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Ux design take-home challenge examples.

1. Janitors app

“We developed an app to help janitors stay on top of their job. It includes a way to inventory their supplies, recipes for cleaning solutions, an interactive space to upload a floorplan map to keep track of their workspace and a chart to keep track of their cleaning rotations. Your task is to design a single detail view for the map section of the app.”

Find the entire prompt on Designercize

2. Roommates

“Design a mobile product experience that appeals to millennials that makes it safe to find the ideal roommate in New York City. Design the experience from the perspective of a person who is looking for a roommate as well as the one who is looking for an apartment. Once the ideal roommate is found, what else can this product do to make the roommate experience better?

We are looking for you to identify pain points in the “finding/keeping a good roommate” journey and to find ways to solve those pain points.

Constraint: Stick to existing mobile capabilities of iOS and Android.”

Find the entire prompt on Prototypr

3. Gym class checkout

“We built a gym class discovery app. Currently, users can only discover gym classes – they can’t purchase them. To make our app profitable, we want to add a feature where users can purchase the classes they’re interested in through our app. Please design a full checkout process for our gym class discovery app.”

4. SmartHome Voice Assistance

“Imagine the Voice Assistance wants to understand how caregivers interact with the SmartHome devices to keep in touch with and help their clients. So far, the research has only been on the device owner’s side rather than the experience caregivers have. The team would like to present the results in six weeks.”

Find the entire prompt on DScout 5. Homepage

“Our drop shipping company created an A/I powered shipping and logistics app to help podcast creators earn passive income through the merchandise that promotes their show. Your task is to design the homepage of a website for our A/I powered shipping and logistics app for podcast creators.”

“GoPro’s current mobile app is only good for three things — to look at photos people have taken on their own cams, to edit those photos and to look at photos other people have taken around the world. For a camera that’s changing the world, this app is admittedly dull and doesn’t push the envelope.

GoPro Corp. has put you in charge of delivering a new mobile app, one that stands out from the photo environment today (Instagram. VSCO, and Snapchat), one that will appeal to Gen-Z. What does the perfect GoPro app do that’s new and groundbreaking?

Constraint: This is an iOS app, all suggested technologies need to be available on the market today or within the next 12 months.”

7. Price comparison site for teachers

“We created a price comparison site to help teachers save money on classroom supplies. It’s unfair that they have to spend their own money on supplies for their classrooms, so we want to help them at least find the best deals. Your job is to design a sortable list view for our site.”

8. Restaurant recommendations app

“We’re redesigning the settings options for our restaurant recommendations app. Users have complained that they’re receiving too many notifications, they can’t customise their recommendations enough, and that the settings are hard to change. Please create a settings view for our app to help foodies find restaurants they’ll love. You must include location, notification, international cuisine options, and dietary restrictions.”

9. Google “You are consulting Google on an important strategic decision for their enterprise offerings; they want to know whether it’s worth introducing a sales funnel management tool onto their Enterprise Gmail interface. Google believes that because a majority of their enterprise users discuss business on their email platform and because they are the lexicon of most people’s business contacts, they are in a position to both make the sales process more efficient and make the likelihood of closing business higher.

26% of Google’s Enterprise users engage in sales weekly, 40% engage in some sort of funnel management (whether sales, hiring, or some other decision funnel).

A typical sales funnel includes Leads, Inquiries, Prospects, Quotes and a new customer.

Recommend a funnel management flow to Google. Ensure the flow accounts for a user making initial contact with a lead from within Gmail and then managing that lead through the entire funnel. What else can Gmail do to put the odds of closing business in favour of their user?”

Where can I find practice tasks for UX take-home design and whiteboard challenges?

Example tasks for take-home and whiteboard challenges can be hard to find Here are four great places to get free practice tasks. We reference these sources in this blog post. But if you want more detailed, in-depth challenge examples – head to these sources:

• 100 Days of Product Design
• Designercize
• UX Challenge

Now, go practice

Now that you have some prompts, it’s time to practice! Try creating a template framework that you’ll use for all of your challenges and speaking out loud as you practice. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable and say everything you’re thinking.

Most design challenges will be about the organisation that you’re applying to. They may be r eal problems that UX designers within the company faced or something inspired by their current projects. They were created to help employers evaluate your approach to design problems.

Whiteboard and take-home design challenges help employers see that you can perform well in five significant areas. They want to know that you can communicate effectively with their team. This means they’re looking to see you think critically and ask questions. Your interview panel is also checking to see if you’ll be able to collaborate well with the team they already have.

Then they’ll test your character. Your potential employers are also going to give you constructive criticism to make sure you can handle feedback. They’re testing how well you can perform on a deadline while working on a new problem. If you practice, you’ll ace your interviews.

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• January 10, 2023

How to Ace UX Writing Take-Home Assignments

What’s a ux take-home assignment.

Long gone are the days of walking into a business, asking for a job, and starting the next day. Job hunting has become a long and tiring process, and finding the perfect  UX Writing  role is no different.

Most UX positions start with an application, interview or two (or three or four), and a task to showcase their skill. Though these tasks vary a lot by company, they usually consist of a product flow (like someone signing up for the first time, or creating an item) that needs copy improvements. Applicants are given anywhere from a day to a week to work on the task and, if their ideas match expectations, the hiring process moves forward. Note that take-home tasks differ from whiteboard challenges, which are usually done during the interview in real-time.

What are hiring managers looking for?

UX Writing is about copy, but that’s only one aspect of the job. Antoaneta Tsaneva, UX Director of  Quantive , knows that hiring UX Writers isn’t just about finding good copy.

“We’re not looking for specific solutions or a right answer,” she says. “Tasks will always be a bit out of context. We’re looking for how they’ll work around that. What questions do they ask, and how much initiative do they take?”

As with any writing task, it’s rare that all relevant information is immediate and obvious. “UX Writing is about knowing the meaning beneath people’s words,” Antoaneta adds. “A task lets us see your work process, and how you’d go about finding what you need to improve the experience.”

UX Writer-hopefuls shouldn’t just be looking at the words. Hiring managers use these tasks to better understand how well applicants can manage different UI components, whether they know basic research methodology, and if they know the processes of product development.

Jenni Nadler, the Head of UX Writing at  Wix , has specific boxes she’s hoping applicants will tick. “The first thing we look for is English level. We hire plenty of people who aren’t native speakers, but they have to be near native level,” she says. “We’re also looking to see whether you can stand behind your work. That’s not always easy to do in an interview, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. But it’s a great opportunity for me to see whether they’ve been thoughtful about their decisions.”

Wix’s UX Writing applicants have 72 hours to complete their task. They’re specifically requested to include any relevant comments, explanations, and questions within their submission. “It’s great if I see that they’re thinking about conversations they’d need to have with a designer,” Jenni says.

TL;DR:  The best things you can do to ace your task? Do your homework. Understand the company you’re applying to, and the specific directions in the task. Give context where necessary, and be able to back your decisions. Remember: hiring managers are looking at your copy, yes, but they’re also looking at  how  you get to the point to write it.

UX take-home assignment red flags

Just as there are things that can make you stand out for the better, some choices can put you out of the running.

Elena Tsutsumanova, a Talent Acquisition Specialist at Quantive, views hiring from a company-wide perspective. “You can imagine my disappointment when I’m going into the meeting super optimistic about an application and the other person has no clue what we do at Quantive,” she says. If an applicant has created a demo account, or gone over the basics of the organization, that can be proof that they are excited about the position. Spend time finding out whether the company has a public style guide, or just take a look at some of their flows, to learn about their current standards.

And let’s repeat our main point here: UX Writing isn’t just about writing words that are grammatically correct. “We don’t need a translator or proofreader,” Antoaneta pointed out. UX Writers need to be able to work alongside designers and product managers to create clear flows, thoughtful information architecture, and processes for consistent vocabulary and voice.

UX Writing is a detail-oriented job. “The biggest red flag,” Jenni says, “is if they didn’t change much. The second is if they changed a ton.” While UX Writers often influence the layout of pages within a flow, applicants need to show a willingness to be flexible. UX is about working alongside others to make an experience that works from all angles: writing, design, development, etc.

“Another red flag is a candidate refusing to complete the UX project that is part of our hiring process,” Elena points out.

It’s a valid point. Many applicants have started wondering whether these sorts of tasks are ethical, or are used as a type of free labor. If a company asks you to write copy for a flow that is currently in production, or that requires days and days of work, those can be red flags to  you . However, most companies use “fake” or outdated flows, meaning that your work won’t be used even if you’re not hired. And recent years have seen assignments significantly shortened in respect for everyone’s time.

For UX Writers who wonder whether a task is necessary at all, well, it depends on your experience. “They’re critical,” Jenni says, “for people who are really new. It’s also great practice and experience for someone just starting out, who maybe doesn’t have a portfolio yet.”

TL;DR:  The biggest red flags are not knowing anything about the company or product you’re interviewing for, and not showing knowledge beyond good copy. Show that you know how to work within a UX team.

What about other aspects of the hiring process?

Take-home assignments weigh heavily in the decision making process, but let’s not forget that they don’t stand alone. Getting a UX Writing position also entails submitting an application and sitting through interviews.

While interviews are a great way to test your knowledge, they’re primarily used to see if applicants would be a good fit. “At Quantive,” Elena says, “we start off with a 15-minute video interview. This call tells us more than you might think: if the candidate is a good personality fit, how they communicate, how excited they’re about this role, and how passionate they are about UX in general.”

A recent survey showed that 82% of tasks are given  after  at least one interview. The challenge matters–a lot–but  use the interviews  to show your personality and excitement for the job.

And it’s often your portfolio that gets you that first interview. There are a lot of  great tools  out there to make your work stand out. If you’re looking for your first-ever role, you can make case studies of already-existing products to show how you’d improve their flows.

A Case Study

Let’s step away from the theoretical and get into the practical. Take a look at the challenge that got me my position as the first UX Writer at Quantive.

Quantive provided five screens from their onboarding flow and laid out specific requirements: explain what does and doesn’t work with the current copy, and propose improvements. They noted that the main goal of the flow was to explain to users the value of key product features.

One of the screens was an empty state for Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):

There’s a lot going on here, and the first thing I did was to write down what came to mind:

• There’s a lot of copy on this page, and my eye isn’t drawn to one specific area.
• The explanation of why KPIs are helpful uses a lot of buzzwords without clearly stating the advantages.
• The demo video in the bottom-right corner is not very visible, and disappears after I leave the page.
• Title case is not as accessible as sentence case.

I wrote these notes on the side of the screen, then provided recommended solutions:

• Remove the Leverage KPIs with OKRs section
• Change the primary title and subtitle to Create your first KPI: Key Performance Indicators help identify trends and measure the overall health of your company’s progress.
• Add a secondary CTA: View demo

Now that I know the company even better, I wouldn’t make exactly the same recommendations. And that’s okay; in fact, that’s kind of the point. What helped me stand out was, first, that I was able to simplify content into what users needed to read; and, second, that I tackled the problem from a perspective larger than just proofreading the copy. The actual changes to this screen come from discussions and collaboration with other stakeholders. 

I followed the same formula with the other four screens, and also included a page of further research I’d conduct and larger recommendations to consider had this been a real project. In the following interview, we didn’t spend time going over every phrase: but we did talk about the general process that brought me to my conclusions.

A word of encouragement

If you’re trying to start out as a UX Writer, the process can seem daunting. But understanding what hiring managers are and aren’t looking for can help you get that first gig.

You’ve got this.

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UX Interviews: Take-Home Design Assignments (and How to Deal with Them)

• Post author By Vy Alechnavicius
• Post date 25/06/2021
• No Comments on UX Interviews: Take-Home Design Assignments (and How to Deal with Them)

In this quick video, I’ll cover one of the most requested topics recently – dealing with the take-home assignments during the UX interviews. While at the surface it seems like a simple request from the potential employers, where are a few things a designer or UX researcher needs to consider before committing to it. There’s also an alternative and much more rightful option that can deliver greater value for both parties. I’ll also cover how the take-home assignments if done at all should reflect actual UX responsibilities and why at the current state most of these efforts are pure UI exercise.

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5 prioritization methods in ux roadmapping.

November 14, 2021 2021-11-14

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Prioritizing work into a roadmap can be daunting for UX practitioners. Prioritization methods base these important decisions on objective, relevant criteria instead of subjective opinions.

This article outlines 5 methods for prioritizing work into a UX roadmap :

• Impact–effort matrix 
• Feasibility, desirability, and viability scorecard
• RICE method
• MoSCoW analysis 

These prioritization methods can be used to prioritize a variety of “items,” ranging from research questions, user segments, and features to ideas, and tasks. This article focuses on using these methods within the context of roadmapping—prioritizing problems that need to be solved into a strategic timeline. 

In This Article:

1. impact–effort matrix, 2. feasibility, desirability, and viability scorecard , 3. rice method, 4. moscow analysis, 5. kano model, 1.a. overview.

An impact–effort matrix is a 2D-visual that plots relative user value against implementation complexity. Variations of this matrix are used across various product-development approaches, including Six Sigma, design thinking, and Agile.

The resulting matrix captures the relative effort necessary to implement candidate features and their impact on the users. It can be subdivided into four quadrants: 

• Quick wins include low-effort, high-impact items that are worth pursuing. 
• Big bets include high-effort, high-value items; they should be carefully planned and prototyped, and, if executed, are likely to be differentiators against competitors. 
• Money pit includes low-impact, high-effort items that are not worth the business investment; there are better places to spend time and resources. 
• Fill-ins comprise low-effort, low-impact items that may be easy to implement but may not be worth the effort as their value is minimal. 

A comparative matrix is a malleable tool. While we discuss impact–effort matrices in this article, you can easily replace each axis with other criteria or use multiple matrices to assess more than two criteria. When setting up multiple matrices, set up your axes so that the Quick Wins (or whatever the equivalent best-outcome quadrant is) is positioned in the same spot (for example, always in the bottom left position), in order to easily compare several matrices and identify the items that consistently fall in best-outcome quadrant. 

1.B. Criteria

This prioritization method uses two primary criteria to rank features that are considered for implementation: the impact that the feature will have on the end user and the effort required to implement that feature. 

• Impact is the value the item will bring to the end user. The level of impact an item will have on end users depends on the users’ need, their alternatives, and the severity of the pain point the item solves.
• Effort is the amount of labor and resources required to solve the problem. The more technically complex the item, the higher effort it will require.

1.C. Process

Items are gathered on a whiteboard and their relative scores on the impact and effort dimensions are established through voting. Team members are given colored dots (one color per dimension) to vote for those items that they consider to rate highly on one or both dimensions.  

A general rule of thumb is that the number of votes per person is half the number of items being prioritized. It’s also possible that certain team members vote on a single dimension, according to their expertise — for example, UX professionals may rank impact, while developers may rank implementation effort.

After team members have silently voted on items, the items can be placed collaboratively on an effort–impact matrix (the x-axis represents effort, while the y-axis represents impact) according to the number of impact and effort votes received. 

Once everything is placed onto the chart, discuss the results and compare items, prioritizing those in the quick-wins and big-bets quadrants. Feel free to use the artifact as a platform for negotiation — throughout discussion with the team, it’s okay to collaboratively move items. However, at the end, there should be agreement on the final placement and the artifact should be documented and saved so it can easily be referenced in the future. 

1.D. Best for Quick, Collaborative Prioritization

An impact–effort matrix is best suited for quick, collaborative prioritizations. The method has a few advantages:

• The output is a shared visual that aligns mental models and builds common ground . 
• It is democratic — each person can express their own opinion through a vote.
• It can be done relatively quickly due to its simplicity. 

2.A. Overview

This method was developed by IDEO in the early 2000s. It ranks items based on a sum of individual scores across three criteria: feasibility, desirability, and viability. 

2.B. Criteria  

This prioritization method uses three criteria to rank items (i.e., features to be implemented):

• Feasibility : the degree to which the item can be technically built. Does the skillset and expertise exist to create this solution?
• Desirability : how much users want the item. What unique value proposition does it provide? Is the solution fundamentally needed, or are users otherwise able to accomplish their goals? 
• Viability : if the item is functionally attainable for the business.  Does pursuing the item benefit the business? What are the costs to the business and is the solution sustainable over time? 

2.C. Process

Create a table, with one row for each possible item, and columns for the 3 criteria — feasibility, desirability, and viability. Then, determine a numeric scoring scale for each criterion. In the example above, we used a numeric scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being a low score. 

Next, give each item a score across each criterion. Scoring should be as informed as possible — aim to include team members who have complementary expertise. Once each item is scored across each criterion, calculate its total score and force a rank. Sort the table from highest to lowest total score, then discuss the results with your team. 

2.D. Best for Customized Criteria 

This scorecard format is highly customizable. You can add columns to reflect criteria specific to your organization’s context and goals. You can also replace the criteria with others relevant to you. For example, the NUF Test , created by Dave Gray, uses the same scorecard format, but with New , Useful , Feasible as the criteria set. 

Another common modification is assigning weights to the different criteria — with those that are very important weighing more heavily in the final score. 

3.A. Overview

RICE is a prioritization framework developed by Intercom . It takes into account four factors: reach, impact, confidence, and effort to prioritize which features to implement.

3.B. Criteria  

This RICE method is based on scoring each item on 4 different dimensions:

• Reach : the number of users the item affects within a given time period 
• Impact : the value added to users 
• Confidence : how confident you are in your estimates of the other criteria (for example, highly confident if multiple data sources support your evaluation) 
• Effort : the amount of work necessary to implement the item 

3.C. Process

Using the RICE method is straightforward. Separate scores are assigned for each criterion, then an overall score is calculated. 

• A reach score is often estimated by looking at the number of users per time period (e.g., week, year);  ideally, this number is pulled from digital analytics or frequency metrics . 
• The impact score should reflect how much the item will increase delight or alleviate friction; it is hard to precisely calculate, and, thus, it’s usually assigned a score (for example, through voting, like in the previous methods) often on a scale from .25 (low) to 3 (high).  
• The confidence score is a percentage that represents how much you and your team trust the reach and impact scores.  100% represents high confidence, while 25% represents wild guesses. 
• The effort score is calculated as “person-months” — the amount of time it will take all team members to complete the item. For example, an item is 6 person-months if it would require 3 months of work from a designer and 1 month from 3 separate developers.  

Once you have each of the 4 criterion scores, use the formula to calculate the final score for each item: multiply the reach, impact, and confidence scores and divide the result by the effort score. Then compare, discuss, and reevaluate all the items’ scores with your team.  

3.D. Best for Technical-Oriented Teams

The RICE method works well for organizations that are more technical in nature (for example, when stakeholders are comfortable with equations or spreadsheets). The RICE method also works well when there are many items that need to be prioritized. Consider including peers with diverse domains of expertise in the RICE process and assign them the task of calculating the score for the criterion that relates to their expertise. 

4.A. Overview

MoSCoW analysis is a method for clustering items into four primary groups: Must Have , Should Have , Could Have , and Will Not Have . It was created by Dai Clegg and is used in many Agile frameworks. 

4.B. Criteria

This prioritization approach groups items into four buckets: 

• Must have : items that are vital to the product or project. Think of these as required for anything else to happen. If these items aren’t delivered, there is no point in delivering the solution at all. Without them the product won’t work, a law will be broken, or the project becomes useless. 
• Should have: items that are important to the project or context, but not absolutely mandatory. These items support core functionality (that will be painful to leave out), but the project or product will still work without them. 
• Could haves : items that are not essential, but wanted and nice to have. They have a small impact if left out. 
• Will not have: items that are not needed. They don’t present enough value and can be deprioritized or dropped. 

4.C. Process

MoSCoW analysis can be applied to an entire project (start to finish) or to a project increment (a sprint or specific time horizon). 

Begin by identifying the scope you are prioritizing items for. If your goal is to create a UX roadmap, you’ll usually have to prioritize for the first three time horizons: now (work occurring in the next 2 months), next (work occurring in the next 6 months), and future (work occurring in the next year). 

Compile the items being prioritized and give each team member 3 weighted voting dots, (one dot with a 1 on it, the next with a 2 on it, and so forth). Ask team members to assign their dots to the items they believe most important, with 3 being weighed most heavily.

Add up each item’s score based on the ranked votes (3 = 3 points and so forth). Identify the items with the highest scores and make sure that everybody in the group agrees on their importance. 

As each item is discussed and agreed upon as a Must Have , move it to a new dedicated space. Repeat this process for lower-priority items and assign them to the Should Have, Could Have , and Will Not Have groups based on their scores.

Once you have assigned each item to one of the four groups, establish the resources and bandwidth required for each group, starting with the Must Haves . Keep track of the total bandwidth and resources at your disposal, distributing and allocating your total amount across Must Haves (which should get the most resources), Should Haves (with the second most resources), and finally Could Haves (with few resources).  

There is not a clear threshold for how many items should be in each group. To determine this number, return to the goal of the prioritization activity. For example, if you are prioritizing items in a backlog, there is only time for so many tasks to be achieved in one sprint. In this scenario, all Must Haves should be easily achieved within one sprint; this constraint will limit how many items cannot be placed within this group.  

4.D. Best for Teams with Clear Time Boxes

MoSCoW is a good prioritization method for teams looking for a simplified approach (given the relatively vague prioritization criteria set) and with a clear time box identified for the work. Without a clearly scoped timeline for completing the work,  teams run the risk of overloading the Must Haves (of course, everything will feel like a Must Have if the timeline is the next two years!). 

5.A. Overview

The Kano model was published by Dr. Noriaki Kano in 1984 and is a primary prioritization method in the Six Sigma framework. Items are grouped into four categories according to user satisfaction and functionality and plotted on a 2D graph. 

5.B. Criteria 

This prioritization method uses two primary criterions to rank items: functionality and satisfaction. 

• None (-2) : the solution cannot be implemented
• Some (-1) : the solution can be partly implemented
• Basic (0) : the solution’s primary functions can be implemented, but nothing more 
• Good (1) : the solution can be implemented to an acceptable degree
• Best (2) : the solution can be implemented to its full potential 
• Frustrated (-2) : the solution causes additional hardship for the user
• Dissatisfied (-1) : the solution does not meet users’ expectations
• Neutral (0)  
• Satisfied (1) : the solution meets users’ expectations
• Delighted (2) : the solution exceeds users’ expectations

5.C. Process

Each item is first assigned a satisfaction score and a functionality score. The satisfaction score should be based on user data — for example, on existing user research or on a top-task user survey asking users to rate the importance of each feature; the functionality score can be rooted in the collective expertise of the team.  

These scores are then used to plot items onto a 2D-graph, with the x-axis corresponding to functionality and the y-axis to satisfaction. Each axis goes from -2 to 2. 

Based on their placement on their scores, items fall into one of four categories: 

• The Attractive category (often called Excitement ) are items that are likely to bring a considerable increase in user delight. A characteristic of this category is the disproportionate increase in satisfaction to functionality. Your users may not even notice their absence (because they weren’t expectations in the first place), but with good-enough implementation, user excitement can grow exponentially. The items in the Attractive are those with a satisfaction score of 0 or better. These items appear above the blue Attractive line in the Kano illustration above.
• The Performance category contains items that are utilitarian. Unlike other categories, this group grows proportionately. The more you invest in items within this category, the more customer satisfaction they are likely to prompt. The items in the Performance category have equal satisfaction and performance scores and fall on the green line in the Kano illustration above.  
• The Indifferent category contains items that users feel neutral towards — satisfaction does not significantly increase or decrease with their functionality and is always 0. Regardless of the amount of investment put into these items, users won’t care. These items are all placed on the dark blue Indifference line (which overlaps with the x-axis). 
• The Must-be category are basic items that are expected by users. Users assume these capabilities exist. They are unlikely to make customers more satisfied, but without them, customers will be disproportionately dissatisfied. Items fall into the Must-be category when their satisfaction score is 0 or worse. These are the items in the purple area of the Kano diagram, below the purple Must Be line.

Once items are assigned to groups, make sure that everybody in the team agrees with the assignment. Items with scores of (0,0), (-2,0) and (+2,0) may initially belong to two groups. In these cases, discuss the item and ask yourself if user value will grow proportionately with your team’s investment. If the answer is yes, group the item with Performance . In cases this is false, group the item with Indifferent . 

Move items as needed, then prioritize items into your roadmap. Items in the Performance category should have the highest priority, followed by Must be , Attractive , then Indifferent . 

5.D. Best for Forcing a User-Centric Prioritization 

The Kano model is a good approach for teams who have a hard time prioritizing based on the user — often due to politics or a traditional development-driven culture. The Kano model introduces user research directly into the prioritization process and mandates discussion around user expectations.  

There are many more prioritization methods, aside from the five mentioned in this article. (It’s also easy to imagine variations on these 5.) One method is not better than another. Consider your project’s context, team culture, and success criteria when choosing a prioritization approach. 

Once you find an approach that works, don’t be afraid to iterate — adjust and adapt it to fit to your needs or appeal to your team. Involve others in this process. The best prioritization methods are ones that everyone on your team, including stakeholders, buy into. 

McBride, S. (2018). RICE: Simple prioritization for product managers. Intercom.  https://www.intercom.com/blog/rice-simple-prioritization-for-product-managers/

What is the Kano Model? ProductPlan.  https://www.productplan.com/glossary/kano-model/

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A Complete Guide to User Story Mapping: Process, Tips, Advantages, and Use Cases in Product Management

• 16 min read
• 7 Aug, 2019
• 1 Comment Share

There are basic things in the world almost everyone knows how to do. Think of making an egg – an elementary culinary act that nourishes while requiring little skill. But while you may think it’s a no-brainer, ask ten people to make an egg, and you’ll get ten different dishes. Planning a software product is a lot like asking people to make an egg. If there was a product backlog for a meal made of eggs, it would probably include user stories like: #1. As a user, I want my meal to be filling, so I can eat it as a complete meal ; #2. As a user, I want my meal to be solid, so I can eat it using a fork ; #3. As a user, I want my meal to be highly seasoned, so I can eat it without adding spices ; #4. As a cook, I want a meal that takes no longer than 10 minutes to make, so I can prepare it fast ; #5. As a cook, I want a meal that consists of few ingredients, so making it takes less effort . Our example is minimalistic, but it is kind of a usual flat backlog, right? Now, can you tell what type of meal we’re talking about here? Is it an omelet, a hard-boiled egg, or a poached one? The stories are written in the vertical order, meaning that the most important items are on top. But is nutrition value really more important than taste qualities? Product backlogs were created to communicate product requirements and vision. While a flat product backlog is a common practice for any agile project, in its traditional form, it has lots of limitations. In 2005, agile practitioner, Jeff Patton, developed a new way to arrange user stories in a backlog. The approach named User Story Mapping as described in Jeff’s book quickly became a widely used practice in product development. So, in this article, we will look at the main advantages of story maps , how they are built, and in which cases you definitely need it.

The Problem with a Flat Backlog

As in the egg example, structuring your user stories in such a manner provides little context to clarify what you are building, how, and why. So, utilizing a flat backlog for product development may have some challenges: User story prioritization . User stories describe specific tasks or features, representing functional requirements requested by users. To work on a product, a development team needs to set priorities on what stories are more important to be released earlier. Prioritization techniques like MoSCow or Eisenhower Matrix are used to define levels of value to ease release planning. But, at the same time, stories written in a top-down fashion cause a conflict of priorities. Contextual lock . Each story describes a piece of future functionality, which is okay on its own. However, a software program broken down into small pieces doesn’t show the big picture. Thus, your team is risking putting too much attention on isolated features, instead of the product as a whole. No shared vision . Consequently, the lack of general context also doesn’t help share a product vision. Stories are translated into tech tasks, providing instructions on what to build right now, without telling what’s coming next in the long run. Doesn’t depict user journey . While a backlog is not a UX user journey map, it needs to depict what users can do with the system. In the format of a flat backlog, describing general user activities is difficult: epics (big stories describing general activities, e.g. authorization) tend to be decomposed into smaller, doable stories. As a result, the visibility of user activity is dimmed. Considering existing backlog problems, Jeff Patton offered a story map as a way to visualize and structure stories. Story mapping soon became a popular technique used for managing agile projects. So now, let’s look closer at how story maps are built and what their real advantages are over a flat backlog.

What is Story Mapping?

A sample story map for a commerce product

Source: storiesonboard.com

An illustration from Jeff’s book showing the concept of the story mapping process

Source: Patton, J & Economy, P, 2014, User Story Mapping book

In the most basic form, it can be built on a blackboard or table using colorful sticky notes. Story mapping as an alternative way to show what you are building helps overcome challenges presented by a flat backlog. Let’s quickly sum up the strengths of story maps.

What are the Advantages of Story Mapping?

The approach described by Jeff Patton is just one of many ways to structure the story map. In any case, the manner in which we organize backlog items inside the map offers the following benefits: Clear priorities . The general approach of how a story map is structured makes it easy to prioritize each story, preserving the connection between big and small items. “ Prioritization becomes easier as a story map begins with the backbone that is not prioritized. You need all of those things since they are required to create an MVP to start off with something. By using the backbone, it’s easier to see where stories or tech tasks belong and where the gaps in functionality are ,” explains Vlad Khilchenko, a product manager at AltexSoft. Built-in user journey . The backbone of a story map is an oversimplified version of a user journey map . While they are structured differently and are used for different purposes, the product team will be able to navigate the backbone’s steps. Additionally, each step can be widely expanded by stories, providing more context to each piece of functionality. Visible product goals and vision . A story map is a dynamic document that will expand as the product grows. Having a bird’s-eye view of the project, and understanding where it starts and where it ends, the team can grasp the vision of the product and how to implement it on a technical level. Helps to avoid backlog grooming . Large-scale projects may last years. As the product moves closer to its release, items in the backlog may lose their relevance, and thus should be reviewed. The act of backlog “cleaning” is called a grooming or refinement session. If you structure your backlog as a story map, items are always placed according to their priorities. Better communication . Product backlogs are created by a single person, a product owner. Contrary to that, story maps are done during the mapping workshop that involves many team members. This facilitates discussion about the product right from the beginning. As we can see, the practice of story mapping is a much more flexible and transparent approach to communicate product ideas. As any document in agile, it’s done with the purpose of building working software. That way, a map can be built in any way you want, given that you stick to the main idea.

What are the Best Use Cases for Story Mapping?

As a technique, story mapping is a good fit to solve the following problems: Outlining Minimum Viable Product . One of the biggest challenges occurring because of the odd prioritization in a flat backlog is defining what goes in MVP. Story mapping was created with this problem in mind, as it allows the team to identify what’s important now and put those items into the MVP release. Managing a more mature product, it’s better to use a product roadmap, as it offers similar capabilities without relying on the backlog changes too much. Slicing large requirements into smaller items . Requirement documents often contain verbose descriptions that are hard to understand. They have too many technical solutions/integrations. Story maps are perfect for decomposing large tasks into smaller pieces, making them digestible for a team. Improve communication with stakeholders . Understanding stakeholder’s requirements can be a pain. In the case of story mapping, not only does it support healthy discussion inside the product team, but also helps product/project managers involve a stakeholder (business owner) in the process. The business owner is one of recommended participants to include in mapping workshops. Facilitating the dialogue between the team and the customer makes it a lot easier to understand desired output. Now that we’ve reviewed story map functions and advantages, let’s look at how we can approach story mapping in our own project and the viable steps to make it work.

The Process of User Story Mapping

How to approach user story mapping? The way you can implement it as an ongoing practice will differ depending on the size of your team, the scope and duration of a project, and the phase of the product’s maturity . The best time to start with story mapping is when you’ve gathered all the product requirements, and team for the project is defined. The map itself can be either built on the basis of existing backlog(s) or as a standalone document.

Pre phase: Gather Documents and Choose the Mapping Tool

If you already have usable technical documentation for a project, take it with you. You ‘ll definitely need to look at the Product Requirement Document (PRD) , standards, and estimates. Also, you should take a look at user personas prepared by a UX researcher. Then, answer a simple question: What type of a story map are you going to build? The old school pen-and-paper method is easier, so if you decide to write by hand – prepare a blackboard, lots of sticky notes, felt-tip pens, markers, adhesive tape, and coffee. If you plan to use a digital product, make sure it has a sharing function as a part of free/paid functionality, if you want the map to make sense. Today, there are many digital products that help teams either as a web-based shareable document or inbuilt CRM solution:

• FeatureMap.co
• CardBoardIt.com

Expected output : Technical documentation is gathered and reviewed. Tools for story mapping are chosen.

Step 1: Select Members of a Story Mapping Team

Before you start, define the people you are going to build your map with. Story mapping is done in the form of a workshop that involves all the key persons from different departments. The outcome of this phase should provide a clear list of people who will participate. In practical terms, you should consider only those people that can make decisions and take an active part in the discussion. Here is a hint: The workshop may include no more than 10 participants. Once the team gets bigger, you won’t be able to provide enough time to each participant. The fewer people you choose, the easier it will be to initiate a discussion between them. Recommended as the head of the workshop : product owner/product manager/scrum master. Recommended roles that should participate : engineer, UX designer/researcher, project manager, stakeholders (business owner or investors), marketing representative, business analyst, sales representative. Expected output : the list of participants.

Step 2: Set the Frames of a User Story Map and Define Goals

As in the case of product roadmaps that pursue similar goals, a story map should have strict borders outlining what you are discussing at this moment. There is no need to cover those parts of the system that are not required yet. You may mention them in the ideas section . The best practice is to focus first on bringing a minimal viable product to life. A Minimal Viable Product or MVP can be defined as an early version of a product that possesses the most important features only. Here’s an example. Imagine that you are forging a knife. Because a knife can be used for a variety purposes, it can have a lot of different features, including decorative ones. But the core use case of a knife is to cut or slice something. So, an MVP of a knife is a tool that has a handle, a blade, and a sharp edge. Those three knife features that are allocated to the release of an MVP are not prioritized between each other. Why? Because the lack of even one feature makes the product value to zero. Jeff Patton suggests using the term Minimum Viable Solution instead of MVP. So, the definition for it is: “ The minimum viable solution is the smallest solution release that successfully achieves its desired outcomes. ” Focusing on MVP in scope definition for the map will guarantee that you include the required basis for the product. At this phase, you should also define what will be put on the map. User personas, user stories, and epics are the must-haves to build a proper map, as well as a release outline. But you should also determine whether you need some additional sections such as:

• Ideas section
• Thrash section
• Tentative section

The next step is to understand whether you must mark what is done on the map and whether you want to provide even more context to the stories or divide them into different types by user personas. Of course, it can be done right at the workshop: Different explanatory items can be easily added to the map with the help of color-coding. But, it’s better to be defined at this stage of planning. Expected output : the scope and format of the map.

Step 3: Implement User Personas

Provided by the UX or marketing department, user personas will serve as a basis for your map. Without knowing who your users are, you won’t be able to understand the epics of the product, and so will miss the whole point of story mapping. Having user personas or talking to UX staff, you can define who the people are that will perform certain actions in the system. Expected output : User personas are defined and listed.

Step 4: Appoint the Meeting and Onboard Participants to Story Mapping

When all the participants are accounted for and you have prepared everything on the practical side, it’s time to explain to the members what you are going to do. Start with a warm-up and just talk to people for a few minutes. At every meeting, it’s important to make participants feel comfy enough to take part in the discussion and share thoughts. Next, elaborate on how a story map works, and what you expect from participants. The main point here is to communicate the goals and align the team’s understanding. After that, you should explain the structure of the map:

• If you are utilizing color coding, explain what each color means. Does it describe the type of item or its priority?
• Tell the members how exactly the items must be placed on the map
• Explain additional options, like the ideas or nice-to-have section

The leader of the meeting may be the one to write the information on sticky notes, but each member can do it on their own. So, each participant should be acquainted with the rules. Expected output : All the members understand what you are going to do, what you want to get as a result. All the structural elements of the map are explained to the participants.

Step 5: Conduct the Workshop

Each epic is assigned with corresponding user persona and decomposed to user activities

As you can see, epics describe the general tasks a user can possibly do. Human face icons floating above the epics are the user personas that each epic is assigned to. When writing the epics, think of a user persona description, as it will provide the key information on how to formulate the epic precisely. Then, break them down into activities a user can do, in the action frame of the epic. Keep in mind that user activities are not user stories; they should define a piece of the process, not a feature. Expected outcome : The backbone of the story map is written.

Step 6: Write User Stories

User stories are allocated by user activities/epics

As we already group stories across epics that have assigned user personas, the classic format of a user story is not obligatory. The number of stories and their details depend on what phase of project preparation you are in right now. But, at a minimum, keep the focus on MVP (or Minimum Viable Solution). Expected outcome : user stories decomposing epics and user activities.

Step 7: Prioritize Stories and Outline MVP

Now user stories are prioritized and put into blocks of releases, an MVP release comes first

At this stage of prioritization, we also outline which stories will go into the MVP release. The choice should be discussed with the team, considering the opinions of those participants who can provide a data-driven argument. Those people are a UX researcher, a business analyst, or a market researcher. When you define the rest of the releases, you can estimate each release separately to provide the team with time frames. Or dates and estimates can be put in a separate document called Release Plan. A release plan is a type of product roadmap that defines time frames for delivering each part of the software without elaborating on tech details. Expected outcome : User stories are prioritized to releases

Step 8: Arrange User Stories That are Left

During the discussion, you will probably generate some extra ideas. Usually, prioritization techniques consider a separate category for stories that are nice to have. So, don’t forget about them. Another important section that you should definitely have is a thrash section. Thrash may sound a little... harsh, but it's a section where your put stories that you don’t need. The importance of this section may not be obvious. However, as the product becomes mature, you can expect a change of priorities or new requirements. So, keep everything organized and clear to extract this data when it’s required. After releases are set, you will have to update the information on the map so that it remains relevant to the current state of the project.

Story Map Maintenance Tips

The map is not static. It will require proper management over time, so also keep in mind the features of the map that will be added in the process: Use note status markers . When the feature is done or there are some delays, add this info to the map. Consider marking each note (with the user story, or the whole user activity) with the status:

• Requires review

These statuses make what’s happening with the product clear and what part of the job is done correctly. Put some risk notes . A risk note is a unit that denotes a high probability of failure. In product development, each feature is based on the assumption that a user needs it. However, this doesn’t work all the time. The example of the risk may also be a need to integrate with a third-party solution, or dependency on the unstable solution/service. Putting risk notes on the map helps keep this information in sight and probably saves your budget. Make stories testable . As we already mentioned, each user story that exists in the backlog or story map is just an assumption based on market research, business analysis, and user interviews. Each assumption can be wrong to some degree or wrong entirely. So, consider making stories testable. One of the ways to check if the assumption is true is to conduct user acceptance testing , which is basically testing that involves real users.

Can the Story Map Replace Product Backlog?

Product development is a tough process that requires efficient tools to drive it. A flat backlog can be enough to communicate product ideas, but its format makes it difficult to understand and share across the team. “ The main advantage of a story map is not the map itself, but the approach to structuring backlog. You may build a flat backlog and it will contain all the necessary information about releases, sprints, timelines, and pieces of functionality. But the map makes it more vivid because it shows the connections visually, and has a place for explanations, ” states AltexSoft’s Vlad Khilchenko as an argument for story mapping. So, it should be considered a neat practice to building a good backlog, rather than an alternative document to replace it.

• SI SWIMSUIT
• SI SPORTSBOOK

Trevor Larnach's homers are statistically elite

Tony liebert | may 28, 2024.

• Minnesota Twins

Twins slugger Trevor Larnach launched an impressive 441-foot home run Monday and it continued an early-career trend that has him sticking out among some of Minnesota's most powerful bats in the Statcast era (since 2015).

How impressive? Larnach now has the longest average home run distance out of all Minnesota players with a minimum of 20 homers over the past decade.

Listed at 6-foot-4, 223 pounds, Larnach is not someone most people know for his insane size or power, unlike the other players near the top of the leaderboard.

Monday's home run against the Royals was only his fourth of the season, but he is now hitting .270 on the year with a .760 OPS and a .427 slugging percentage, all career-highs.

Baseball Savant charts every player's home run distance and 13 of Larnach's 24 career homers are "no doubters." This means 13 of his home runs would've been gone in every single ballpark in the MLB. Twenty of the 24 qualify as "mostly gone," which means they would be homers in up to 29 ballparks.

Larnach, 27, appears to be coming into his own as a hitter in his fourth season with the Twins. His power has made him one of the most intimidating hitters on the roster, and he keeps batting for average, he'll command a spot in the lineup as often as possible.

TONY LIEBERT