Why Easy to Use 2.0?

Easy to Use was a good book. It covered much of what I have learned over my many years of creating great user experiences with agile development for enterprise software. But there were a few more things that I that I wanted to say.

Easy to Use 2.0 covers new topics like user experience myths and realities. There are several misconceptions about what UX is and is not. The expression “UX/UI” kills me! You know someone is from an agency when they refer to user experience and user interface design this way. Anyone who has ever worked at a major enterprise software organizations knows that user interface design (UI) is just one of many disciplines that reports into the User Experience (UX) team. In ETU 2, we discuss that and misconception of the differences between usability and UX and design and UX and more.

In ETU 2, there is a new chapter that covers the experience economy, the user experience maturity model, and how to create your user experience strategy –  all essential to put UX in context of our economy and your business. I also thought it was important to cover what is design thinking and how to do design sprints, minimal viable and minimal desirable products, and how to handle UX debt.

I had a new editor for this edition, Jodi Tahsler at Crystal Pointe Media. Jodi had me add a chapter on how to hire the right talent for your organization, share some stories as case studies from my experiences and added “in a nutshell” summaries at the end of each chapter. There are also more (and better) illustrations thanks to Damon Mathews and a more contemporary cover design (I got feedback that the old cover looked dated and kind of cheesy – my design, my fault, I listened).

In addition to Damon, I want to give a shout out to Rick Gessner, good friend and colleague, who helped me through some of the more recent thinking around MVP and MDP. Among many other wonderful things, Rick teaches a course at UCSD on the Art of Product – he is creating the next generation of innovators.

I want to thank Steve Craig for his constant oversight. Steve has been instrumental in our UX Boot Camp series and reviewed ETU 2 several times to ensure that it was true to what we are sharing in our boot camps.

Mostly, I want to thank my wife, Laure. She was Chief Editor on this one. It helps that she has a publishing company… but more importantly, she puts up with me and keeps me somewhat sane.

Here are few things that folks have been saying about Easy to Use 2.0:

“It’s refreshing to see the thoughtfulness and design expertise Sean Van Tyne brings to the enterprise software space. It is a technology category that’s ripe for design-led disruption, and this book will help you get there. From agile software development to UX maturity models, Easy to Use 2.0 is packed full of useful and actionable information. Better yet, there’s something in here for everyone; there are business insights for the design leader and design insights for the business leader.”

–Garron Engstrom, Product Design at Facebook

“Easy to Use is an easy to read book that provides practical advice on topics that matter to UX teams –  from maturity of UX organizations, integrating UX into agile, and organizing UX teams for success. I encourage UX leaders to tap into Sean’s wealth of experience.”

–Janaki Kumar, VP, Head of Design and Co-Innovation Center, America, SAP Labs

“Enterprise UX is screaming for this book! It helps product teams orient themselves to where they are in the UX continuum, how to effectively plan while still syncing with Agile’s short iterations and, most importantly, how what we do is more about people than technology. Anyone serious about improving enterprise UX will find this cradle to grave manual indispensable!”

–David Garrett, Principal UX Designer, Oracle Cloud Platform Group

Others who were instrumental is this venture:

Steve Mourton, Vice President, Product Management & UX Design, Sony PlayStation and provide the foreword to ETU 2

Armond Mehrabian, Agile Transformation Strategist, Portofino Solutions, and partner on many of these journeys

Alfonso de la Nuez, Co-Founder & CEO, UserZoom and official sponsor of UX Boot Camps

Don Norman, UC San Diego Design Lab, mentor and one of the most gracious people I know

Joe Pine, Author of The Experience Economy

Denise Yohn, Author of What Great Brands Do

Clive Harrison, Vice President of Business Development, NextLevel Internet

Jeofrey Bean, Professor of Business Management and Marketing, UC San Diego, Author of Customer Experience Rules! and The Customer Experience Revolution

Tom Wolfe, Cofounder of Thinking Engines

David Peck, Account Executive, Enterprise Corporate Sales, Salesforce.com

Josh Rab, Director of Product Management for TurboTax, Intuit

Chris Claborne, Enterprise Architect, Office of the CIO, Qualcomm

Phil Ohme, Design Strategist, Intuit

Jonathan Wagner, Interaction Designer, Usability Engineer, and Design Project Manager, Hewlett Packard

Mukul Bisht, Lead User Experience Designer, DocuSign

You can get your copy of ETU 2 on Amazon (of course).