A bag of fish eyeballs | Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) S3 E5

What are MVPs?

What do they mean to you?

Should you even ship an MVP?

We explain what an MVP is, how it fits into the design, and throw in a bag of fish eyes for good measure.

Have you ever tried to ship a product and wanted to make a luxury car but you sent out a skateboard then this episode is for you. What's an MVP? Why do we all have different perceptions of MVPs? Is everything an MVP?  

We're talking about MVPs (Minimum Viable Products and not Most Valuable Players), fish eyeballs, and draughty nether regions – solved with an EMP! All this and more, in our hilarious take on User Experience.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04: 0:00

So for anyone who's curious, the flavour notes are fish with a gelatinous quality, and in the centre there's a strange like chalky ball. Like a kinder egg. It's like a well, a reverse kinder egg. Yeah. A reverse um cream egg.

SPEAKER_08: 0:19

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00: 0:21

You've made that even less appealing.

SPEAKER_05: 0:25

Hello and welcome to Faster Horses. I'm Paul Wilshore at Paul Wilshore on Twitter, and these are my co-hosts, Mark Sutcliffe, which is Marks out of ten.

SPEAKER_04: 0:35

Hello, hello.

SPEAKER_05: 0:36

And Nick Tomlinson at NT Illustrators.

SPEAKER_07: 0:40

Hello.

SPEAKER_05: 0:40

This is series three. Series three! But if you haven't heard of series one or two, uh you can check those out on Spotify, Apple Podcasts. You can find us in loads of places. Now you can get this extended version of the same episodes early by signing up to our Faster Horses Patreon, as well as one extra Patreon exclusive episode a month, along with other benefits detailed on the sites. Don't forget to like and subscribe, it really does help the show, and also follow our official Twitter page at FasterHorses UX for regular updates, find show topics, and interesting articles and random musings for the team. Also, if you want to give us feedback, send us some feedback. Now, without further ado, let's go on to the show.

SPEAKER_04: 1:26

The one thing I wanted to say about the biometric scanner, I was thinking about this um last night for some reason. I don't know why it popped into my head. One of those weird dream moments before you fall asleep. I can get into my uh brother's face scanner. Because I'm his identical twin. Yeah, yeah. And even with the facial hair difference, I can still get in without a problem.

SPEAKER_01: 1:50

You know it goes off like your T-zone, doesn't it? Like mostly your eyes, in it, by what I can tell.

SPEAKER_05: 1:56

You know why they've actually reduced the security of the face scanner, and that's why you could probably get because of masks. They s let you in. They yeah, yeah, they they uh eliminate a lot part of that part of the face because obviously a lot of people have been wearing masks for the last time.

SPEAKER_01: 2:16

Like journey specific for scanning your face for wearing a mask, aren't they? Yeah, yeah. In the past few months, which I thought was quite good. What's that journey then? It's just a whole new like specific um you're likely to be wearing a mask, so rescan your face kind of rather than just you know saying rescan your face or whatever, it's like updating the oh they so they provided the proper narratives to support it as well. So rather than you just taking it upon yourself to go in and redoing it, it's actually you can only have two faces. You can only have two faces? That voice that you heard in the background was someone who's not on this podcast, so did did did Drew say you can only have two faces? Yeah, I mean if you if you ask people I know, I've definitely got at least two.

SPEAKER_04: 3:03

I was about to say something along that line then as soon as you drop Paul, it's like that fucking Paul can't stand as soon as you stop recording. I don't know. I think we're very um straightforward with our listeners, listeners. Well, very straightforward with our listeners, especially in you know acknowledging the fact there's only two of them and we treat them with no respect whatsoever.

SPEAKER_01: 3:33

One of which yeah, one of which is Drew, who was just trying to get actually on the podcast. So that's interesting. That's very meta.

SPEAKER_05: 3:44

Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_04: 3:46

So today's today's um topic, as promised, uh in our last podcast, is actually gonna be MVPs. Minimum viable product that stands for, not most viable player. Uh so yeah, we'll be discussing what it means to use that phrase and uh and you know how useful is an MVP and what kind of promises does it promise and often fail to uh maintain, at least in my opinion. Like you put the uh put your opinion straight out there, but well, you know, launch into like one of the biggest problems for me is that MVPs are false promises, and I feel like you've got the P in there, MVP, you know, you could rephrase it to be more meaningful, like Yeah, I think I think the the the viable though, the minimum viable is the key words, isn't it?

SPEAKER_05: 4:49

There because either you you're making a product which has to work, has to function, and if you were thinking like a real world product, like uh like a let's say a toy car, you couldn't ship it with three wheels. It's a it's a car. Well, I suppose unless you're making a Robin Reliant car. Uh so you couldn't you couldn't ship it with two wheels, let's say because then that'd be a motorbike. Um so you kind of it's gotta have four wheels, and I think sometimes when people say MVP, they forget the product thing and just put minimum viable, and then actually that minimum viable means different things to different people, it means different things to a UX designer, designers, it means very different things to a developer, and it also then means different things to the business as well, or you know, product people, yeah. Um, and and minimum viable sometimes I think is like what's the least amount of effort we can do?

SPEAKER_04: 6:00

Yeah, because every every different part of the organization um well conveniently split it up into UX, tech, and business. And there are more, there's others you've got like your marketing and and your finance and all that, but just be a bit reductive. They all have different investments by nature. That's that's the point. So if you have MVP, MVP to to a user, experienced person is going to be far more experiential than the tech guy who wants to get it out basically barely functioning, you know. He may skip some of the hygiene that comes with good codes management, stuff like that. It may just be a prototype, uh, throw away code stuff, and then you've got business who want to get it out as quickly as possible so they don't spend any money making it and can maximise a profit coming back in. So, how do you even align on the definition of uh an MVP?

SPEAKER_01: 7:00

It's tricky, Nick. Are you posing that question specifically to me? I will do now, yes. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 7:10

You were gonna say you look like you were gonna say something.

SPEAKER_01: 7:12

Yeah, well, I mean, I've got a lot to say about the term MVP, both positive and negative, but in terms of that specific question, I think the way you align is that you you have to someone has to be in charge of that message, and because I'm a UX designer, I'm gonna say it should be the UX department or or the head of UX. And basically you set you you figure out the process of how this department is gonna work and how it's gonna be spread across the other departments, and you know that should be like a an organic, like holistic outlook, and then you you decide what an MVP is, like as as you say, but you know, you what I think the term in UX terms probably has quite a specific meaning, but when it leaves the UX department and it starts getting into like dev and and product, and particularly you know, when it when it starts entering the lexicon of like product managers and and execs, it it starts to lose form of what it actually means. So like to us or to me to to a good UX designer, an MVP could be like you know, just quick iterations of a design, failing fast, doing some research, validating or or not like your assertions, and sticking it back in Figma and and working again, and whether you do that once or twice in a sprint run, depending on how long your sprint run is, that's you know, to me that's a good MVP. But more often than not, when I've experienced that term being used, what it actually means is we don't have time for accessibility, and we're gonna put this into the product where it's gonna remain for the next three years because no one factored it into the production of what we're creating, and that becomes the default sort of de facto meaning of MVP, and that's why every time I hear it said now I throw up a little bit in my mouth.

SPEAKER_04: 9:11

Well, it's because well, in my opinion, it's because you you you basically said it without saying it, something you often accuse me of doing it. Um is that what you described there was part of a process, yeah, or in fact it it is it's a full process, and what you end up finding is that the MVP part of it is divorced from any sense of process, so that it's it's just a thing, yeah. In and and so once you have done your MVP, whatever form it takes, that's where it begins and ends, and you've got no scope to iterate. You've got in fact, very often what you find is that the process has just moved on entirely, yeah. Um and you're you're onto something new, and you as you say, it ends up in rotting away for the rest of the life in the product until your users start dropping off because of this old rotting lin that you threw on three years ago, um and called it viable.

SPEAKER_01: 10:14

Yeah, and really that's it, isn't it? That's the that's the crux of it. It becomes like a catch-all term for excusing yourself of doing your job properly, I feel.

SPEAKER_04: 10:27

That's what I've seen it become, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 10:29

Yeah, that's my negative connotation with it. But now, so you know, as people might have heard on the previous podcast, I'm in a new role now, and the term NvP is being used in that role, but it's being used properly by people who who understand user need, and now it it's it's being used as like like I say, fail fast, learn something, iterate quickly, and and just get it out there, you know. Like, don't let's not fanny about making this design perfect, let's make these changes, put it in front of people, test it, get some data on it, and change it. It's not it's not wheel it, wheel it out to die, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 11:11

Yeah, and I I think that that's the key, isn't it? I mean you've got to build that in. If you're gonna if anybody's gonna taught MVPs and you want to kind of put out an MVP, the the reason you're doing that is um because it's lean, it's agile, you want to get some quick feedback on something, you want to get user engagement, and I f I find like minimum viable product becomes just product, uh, and then you start shipping motorbikes over cars, uh, and you know, and all that nice stuff. I mean it becomes unviable as well, though, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_04: 11:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unviable. There's no accountability for that. You know, there's no one even checking whether it's still viable at any point, it's just assumes that it was once, or it will be a good one.

SPEAKER_01: 12:02

Well, it's minimum minimum viable, so whatever that means to the person who said go, I mean, maybe it maybe it installs or maybe it loads up, but like whether or not a person can actually use it is not even considered, is it?

SPEAKER_05: 12:15

Yeah. And and a range of people using it as well, you know. Kind of like, you know, if you're just targeting, you know, heterosexual males, jobs done, but you know, we're not in that world anymore, are we? Really?

SPEAKER_04: 12:30

Well, we never never really were in that world, it's just uh just what people assumed. Um but you've made an interesting point about the you know, the motorcycle to reliant rob into full-blown car kind of analogy, because I've seen that used by Scrum Masters.

SPEAKER_05: 12:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 12:50

Was the last time I saw this used, and it was used as a way of describing the agile approach and the scrum approach versus just building the wheels and then building the steering wheel and then building your engine and then building your chassis, etc. etc. Um, but the the other side of that is that if you are building, before you build a uh a scooter, shall we say, or a motorbike, you build a skateboard? Well, yeah, technically it can go forward, technically it's meeting some of your product needs, but you can't take that on the motorway. Yeah, you can't go cross country with it. So how do you define what viable is and and where is it that those those points are coming from? Where do you guys think they should come from?

SPEAKER_05: 13:43

It's interesting because this I think the whole problem stems back to the perception of how software is made or kind of like websites are made, and like I remember early on in my career, you used to do a design, spend a long time over that design, agonize it over it, and then you put it out there and you showed it to people, and people instantly thought that design was built and they wanted to click on it. And I think you know, sometimes prototypes and you know, uh clickable prototypes, they once you put those out, they become set in stone, or either people then go like, oh, actually we can't do that, let's scope it back, let's scope it back, that you know that's gonna take too long, which is fine, but as long as that doesn't stop you kind of making or getting feedback on it, you know, if you're gonna put something out there, send it off to sea and let it die, that's fine. But don't kind of think that that's ever gonna change, or kind of you're gonna get a better product, you're gonna get more users, you're gonna get more income because you've set that thing off, you've set your motorbike off, and it's gonna die.

SPEAKER_01: 15:08

Um it seems to be people focus on achieving the tick achieving what was requested in the ticket in the sprint run rather than focusing on, well, was this ever the right thing to do in the first place?

SPEAKER_05: 15:23

Yeah, and I and I think if you think about those products that are really successful, those are the ones that have taken the risk and tried things and put things out there. I think I should I shared something with you both earlier today about um Netflix have now got a TikTok style thing on the app. Yeah, um and like opinions about that. And while I kind of think, oh god, I think as well, it's kind of clever at the same time because they've created this shareable content that you can directly share clips from Netflix on a happens popular flowing form.

SPEAKER_04: 16:06

The same propensities as the most addictive social media, either TikTok, Instagram stories, yeah, uh YouTube shorts, all mechanized uh the interesting flip side to that is that Twitter introduced and killed that um like within a couple of months, didn't they?

SPEAKER_01: 16:26

So I think last month they officially like pulled that feature on Twitter, and I think it was just because no one, like literally no one was using it.

SPEAKER_05: 16:35

Yeah, I don't think that they kind of didn't introduce it very well, and I think this this is another thing as well. You know, if you're gonna do an MVP, think about the onboarding of that MVP, don't just put something out there for the sake of it, because you know what? Guarantee it will die in a ditch, you know. And if you don't think of a nice onboarding, you kind of like if it's a complex software which we've talked about in the past, you know, if you don't do good onboarding onto that MVP, people are not gonna use it uh anyway. Uh, and you know, and it's we say kind of like um don't judge a book by its cover, but everybody does, everybody, you know. I I say book, but yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 17:24

Yeah, that's because you're from a different part of the world, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 17:31

In the Midlands where I come from. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 17:35

As a Boltoner, I can exchange between the two freely, and it's why us Boltoners are such natural diplomats. Yeah, that's why you can always translate what I'm saying to Paul. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but I think you made a really interesting point about including the onboarding because I think there's one thing that people forget about MVPs, and it comes back to the analogy you were making about um the car, Riot Robin, motorcycle thing. Um, but it's that you aren't just you're not creating part of your product. An MVP is minimum viable whole journey, you're in fact minimum viable whole experience, which means it's your minimum viable onboarding as much as it is your minimum viable, I don't know, journey um successful deployment or whatever. Um, and so I think that's the equivalent. So to go back to that analogy, what I think we end up with is a company will make a skateboard, um, and they'll say, Oh, very good, we've met certain goals, we've got our onboarding, we've got a certain look and feel, excellent. And then their next step, instead of building um, you know, let's say the scooter was the next iteration, what they actually do is they just strap two skateboards together, yeah, and then call that an iteration, and then they keep they keep doing that, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 18:58

And what you end up with is about 16 skateboards strapped together like a skateboard for a for a steering wheel.

SPEAKER_05: 19:10

Do you think the the human centipede tried to solve this by stitching humans together to make it one superhuman?

SPEAKER_01: 19:21

I'm not sure you understood the message of that film, Paul. Um I didn't realise that film had the message. Yeah, well, maybe I've read too much into it. Yeah, I don't know it was about it was about the uh the the no one, I'm not even gonna try. I'm just gonna abandon that thought. Okay.

SPEAKER_05: 19:41

My takeaway was that um if you're not on the front, you've got to really bad people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 19:48

I mean I mean, arguably, there's no great position in a human centipede, is there?

SPEAKER_04: 19:53

But if you if you're gonna be forced into it. Right, is this why so you you just said you weren't gonna go into it, but you've

SPEAKER_01: 20:03

No, I was gonna say it was about like the you know the I was gonna say something really poetic and completely inaccurate, like I thought it represented the frailty of man and the uh the battle between everything can represent the frailty of man. Even even the human foot stamping on a human face for eternity.

SPEAKER_04: 20:24

Yes, because you've got to examine the motives of that foot, haven't you?

SPEAKER_01: 20:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 20:28

And really, how sincere are they? And what do they really want?

SPEAKER_01: 20:32

What do they really want? Perhaps they're just trying to communicate and show that they need yeah they need love.

SPEAKER_05: 20:38

Which which which foot persona are you talking about though?

SPEAKER_01: 20:42

Which uh Big Brother from from 1984, yeah, yeah, yeah. And oh yeah, no, no, not the comedy. And how do you bring that to um VPs? Yep. So yeah, oh yeah, so I think one of you said something that made me wonder like, do you think people mistake viable for acceptable? And do you think there's a difference between viable and acceptable?

SPEAKER_04: 21:14

I think yes to both points. Um I was talking today with one of my colleagues, Mate, about semantics, because we well, I say we slip into this conversation. No, I force it on top. You drag him into it, yeah, kicking and screaming. And it was just, you know, I just made the um made the point that dismember and remember are essentially opposites of the same word, and to remember um uh to remember means to bring something together as much as dismember means to pull something apart.

SPEAKER_03: 21:52

And what my to get to my point eventually after this long walk across a windy beach to a cafe that's closed. There's your MPP though, right now.

SPEAKER_04: 22:09

That's a that's a Will Bailey joke. I can't take credit for that. All right, um I thought it was funny, yeah, yeah. Um but my original point is that yeah, of course, viable and acceptable, they sound similar. Um, and there is no one really keeping a check on who takes that. How would you differ? I think the the the good exercise though is how would you, listener, differentiate uh viable and acceptable. Um because leave your comments below. Yeah, exactly. I think that's a really good point.

SPEAKER_01: 22:43

Do you think the synonymous? It's quite subjective, innit? It's subjective to a point, but I guess acceptable, you know, there are rules around that, like accessibility if you're a website, like that is a level of acceptability, and there's basic like usability of of software. If you if you've got a piece of software and it's intended to book a hair appointment, then you need to be able to book a hair appointment at the end of the day, and you don't need to I mean I guess you don't need to offer information that's not pertinent, but again, there's rules around that, like data protection and stuff, and why are you asking for this information? But there's also like general personal uh opinions about what's acceptable as well, and if you've got a high if you've got high standards in your own work, perhaps your opinion of acceptable is different to someone who is just collecting a paycheck or you know what might be an interesting little examination is if if we're to define what acceptable is, do we know what unacceptable is for one given minimum viable product or minimum acceptable product?

SPEAKER_04: 23:53

What's what's invalid for this this minimum viable product?

SPEAKER_01: 23:57

I mean it's got to work, hasn't it? And it's got to work I mean everyone everyone who works in software knows when something's just broken. And that's a term that gets used a lot in software design when something's just broken, or if it if it falls over when you try to use it. That's unacceptable. And if someone's paying for something particular, if you're paying for something, you've got to as a user and as a consumer expect a certain level of of finish and like even fidelity like these days and design um for for a price. So but again, it's that's still subjective, I think, isn't it? I I find it I think it'd be quite difficult to set a bar for what you think is acceptable, or we think is acceptable.

SPEAKER_04: 24:44

I think it's something that as an organization you have to figure out.

SPEAKER_05: 24:49

I think no, I was gonna say, I think there's there is lots of factors to what's what's unacceptable, and you know, this this comes down to the ethics of the company, the um you know, kind of like what what do you actually want? Repeat customers, are you relying on a sales team to kind of fill up those uh requests? Because then you know, your software can be pretty broken, really, you know, and it might just be a bit of information, a bit of you know, and then salespeople mop up kind of all that kind of thing, you know, they do the talking, they kind of like you know win people around, just something you can't do, uh in um in kind of like software, kind of when you're talking to somebody on a digital page, you can't kind of like go, oh wait a minute, I actually meant this, and I'm not selling you a motorbike, I'm selling you this amazing car, but it's gonna cost you exactly the same price as a skateboard, uh, you know, and kind of like you can't do that, and you can't you can't persuade people uh as well as you could face to face, and I mean some people, you know, and it all depends on the business, you know, kind of and how you want to do that. Go on.

SPEAKER_01: 26:09

I I was just gonna counter that point that you made. I don't know if it's even relevant, but I am much eas much more easily swayed by websites and text than I am by people, because if I'm speaking to a people, a people you can tell I'm out of practice. Yeah, if I'm speaking to a person, I'm um I don't particularly enjoy that anyway, so I'm always wary and standoffish. But if I'm speaking to a salesman, I almost like as a blanket thing just disbelieve anything that they're telling me or think the contrary to anything that they're they're saying. Um so I find it much easier to be sold things online, but that said, I'm still pretty pretty skeptical of buying stuff without within the sanctuary of your own mind, you're able to convince yourself. Yeah, well that's it. I mean, I mean, just just ask Drew, like if I buy something, I will look into it, whatever it is, for you know, weeks and weeks before I buy it, I'll never just click on something and buy it.

SPEAKER_04: 27:08

So yeah, I'm it depends. I'm not quite like that. I I'm pretty to the old impulse purchase, uh, especially with books. And if a friend says, Oh, you've got to read this book 15 minutes later, I will have I would have ordered it. Um, but that you know, granted, the original person telling me to get the book is someone I trust typically, it tends to be one of my friends who I care for, unless it's someone in this room now. Um but um one of the things I was going to raise uh was that yeah, we said, you know, defining what viable is, and I think Nick, you basically approached the point that there's a bottom line where stuff goes in, stuff happens, stuff comes out. And and that's kind of ultimately the bottom line for this kind of thinking. But again, it's still very vague, it's still very undefined, and I wonder if it's starting to become a tool in and of itself, a kind of maybe even a marketing tool where you don't have to pledge to anything, you don't have to commit to something because it's an MVP, it's not very well defined, you'll get what you're given, and we might fix it later. Whatever whatever needs fixing, although we might not need to fix anything.

SPEAKER_05: 28:31

Yeah, and I think it depend it depends kind of how you take, you know, kind of if you're a feature shop, you're shipping features, you know. Are you adding value? Do those features add value, or is it just like a a check on the box and getting a process out there? And I think yeah, it it depends kind of how it's gotta be from the business, hasn't it? What what is unacceptable and what's uh viable? And if people don't know that between different departments, you're gonna have these different wild expectations of what you're asking for and what you ever want, and then even you know, have you even asked the users and you know, it got those people here. I don't even we're gonna get a little advert break from Coco. What have you brought, Coco? You brought some eyeballs, amazing, lovely, lovely. They're chopped the chocolate eyeballs, they're not real eyeballs. Although I kind of wouldn't put it past her. No, she'd find it somewhere. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 29:42

So here's another further deviation since we were doing this. My friend Jimmy was once walking through town with his son, and he went past the fishmonger's, and his son was looking in the cabinet. Um, and somehow, I don't know how he even thought to do this, but asked the fishmonger if he could have a plastic bag full of fish as eyeballs. And the fishmonger was just like, yeah, sure. And just handed him a plastic bag that he seemed to already have behind the counter. Whilst his son carried a plastic bag. That was nice and fresh. It's just a bit if you ask me, that's good parenting. Like just being like, Yeah, sure, why not? Like, if it cost him anything, they're going in the bin. There's no reason why not.

SPEAKER_04: 30:29

I mean there's a lesson to be learned, you know. Eventually, what that lesson, what form of that lesson will take, will depend on what happens in the interim between getting bag of eyeballs and disposing of bag of eyeballs.

SPEAKER_03: 30:42

I think that's quite a wide margin of error.

SPEAKER_01: 30:47

I'll have to follow up with what actually happened to that bag of eyeballs. Was it left in primer?

SPEAKER_05: 30:53

One of my party tricks is um just behind the fixtures.

SPEAKER_04: 30:59

He went home and and shoved them inside the curtain pole so that they could never find the small. It's amazing. One of my party tricks is if you get uh if I'm served a full salmon.

SPEAKER_03: 31:17

Right, well not a full salmon, fucking up. Not every sense of the word.

SPEAKER_04: 31:33

But um if I'm eating a human salmon, not a fish a fish suitable for human consumption.

SPEAKER_03: 31:42

Humans can eat salmon.

SPEAKER_05: 31:44

That's an MVF.

SPEAKER_02: 31:50

I forget my original point now.

SPEAKER_04: 31:53

It was gonna be about eyeballs, I'm sure. Oh god, yeah, that was it. My party trick is uh if served a full fish, I will quite happily eat the eyeballs from two fish. Dirty soft just to grow people out there.

SPEAKER_05: 32:06

Just fucking take take the joy away from Jimmy's child.

SPEAKER_07: 32:11

Yes, yeah, yeah. That's what we know.

SPEAKER_04: 32:14

He could have been eating from that bag as if it was a bag of raisins.

SPEAKER_01: 32:21

Would you need a I guess you'd need to cook them first, wouldn't you? There's all there'd be all sorts of stuff in a fish.

SPEAKER_04: 32:26

I think so, but um I mean they I've only ever had them cooked and only one at a time because or two at the most.

SPEAKER_01: 32:35

Um monster, eh?

SPEAKER_04: 32:36

But yeah, so for anyone who's curious, the flavour notes are fish with a gelatinous quality, and in the center there's a strange like chalky ball. Like a kinder egg. It's like a well, a reverse kinder egg, yeah. A reverse um cream egg.

SPEAKER_08: 32:55

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00: 32:57

Now you've made that even less appealing.

SPEAKER_04: 33:03

So one thing I didn't need to mention is MVP. Um we discovered when we were researching this about 15 seconds before we hit record, uh, was a term that only came around as late as 2011. So it's only two years old. Uh two years old? Two years old.

SPEAKER_02: 33:23

Have you just woken up from a plumber, Mark? I think I have, yeah. That's what having too many fish eyes does to a man.

SPEAKER_05: 33:32

Send you into an eight-year commercial.

SPEAKER_04: 33:34

Yeah, that's it. That's it. It comes from the term MVP, um, comes from uh lean software um methodology, you know, um soft lean software development. Um, and there is an actual definition of MP MVP which interestingly summarizes exactly what we've been saying, as you'd expect it to, and emphasizes the point that we think people get it wrong. Because the definition reads that a MVP is a minimum viable product, it's a version of a new product that allows a team to learn as much about customer needs and preferences as possible. Validated learning, in other words, with the least amount of effort. So, what I want to talk about is why is that so abstracted? Why do we exist in this uh ecosystem now where um businesses are picking and choosing parts of methodologies and divorcing them completely from their context?

SPEAKER_01: 34:36

That's so interesting. As a definition, I totally agree with that. But it's it's like it's like I I think things like this end up getting broken and bastardized because someone somewhere went to a conference and someone said it, and then they brought that information back to the business and said, Oh, right, we're gonna be doing this now, and never really looked into or fully understood what it actually meant. I think that happened in a lot of businesses when agile became a thing. People started to say that they were agile when they were far from, and and they confused again, I think I've probably said this in another podcast, they've confused agile with a capital A with Agile with a small A.

SPEAKER_04: 35:20

Where further to that is um the uh the uh opinion about UX, and we went into that that a bit in our previous podcast about job titles, which you can go back to listen to uh if you're so inclined. But yeah, it comes back to that idea that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, and you you know, you people are expended expected to go to conferences, and I have opinions about conf the idea of a conference anyway. Um in short, I think it's where a lot of people get together to agree on stuff they already know.

SPEAKER_01: 35:56

I've you know it's not so much a learning exercise as people think it is, it's a backpack a back pattern exercise, but I've got a whole I've got a whole thing about conferences that I think I've said to you before.

SPEAKER_05: 36:10

Um sorry Mark. No, I was gonna I was gonna say I think I think I think the terminology of MVP is wrong. I like I like um minimum viable is wrong. I think minimum valuable product is a better term because I think the key thing of any MVP should be doing is the does it have value for someone to buy it, use it, and essentially, you know, if you're gonna do any software website design or you know, the end goal is you know sales, isn't it? To make a profit because yeah, on bike I go, uh um so we don't have to edit the sound effect out. So um, and you know, it's that the end goal is either to reduce costs uh and therefore increase in profit, or to make more money to make it viable and valuable for somebody to use and uh you know kind of um then take it on. But I think you know it's kind of the key is kind of like people just think they have a hypothesis of what the product's gonna do, and really until customers start using it or users start using something, nobody really knows that uh is is that hypothesis is correct. You know, you don't you don't go into research and go, I've got a hypothesis that I can cure cancer, and somebody goes, right, I've cured cancer.

SPEAKER_04: 38:04

That's a really good point, and I think that links again into another when we're talking about design systems, and um you mentioned how I say you, we mentioned, we do this podcast together. Um we mentioned how you've got to start from somewhere, and you know, so you've got to have a few screens um or something out there to s to extract your design system from. And I think the same sort of principle applies here. You need to push something out to validate that hypothesis, um, and then and then you can actually pivot because without that information, you don't know which direction is actually the best to go in. And if you you know you're a good um software person, um you'll have reflected on that the idea there's more than one way possible forward here, and that needs to be informed by users and customers.

SPEAKER_01: 38:56

More more than one viable way forward.

SPEAKER_05: 38:59

Exactly.

SPEAKER_06: 38:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 39:00

I think some of the key key things on here, you know, kind of like some of the key, you know, what we use in everyday life, like YouTube, was never intended to be a search engine, but it's the number one search engine in the world, and people search on YouTube more than they do on Google. I probably do that now. Yeah, and you find you find more things through YouTube than you would any other platform, and it's good it's by a staggering amount. And YouTube was never designed to be a search engine, uh, and same with uh Facebook as well. It wasn't it wasn't really designed to be what it is today.

SPEAKER_01: 39:43

Now it's just some well faceless marketing kind of none of the really successful platforms that you use today w started out as what they were what they are now. I would by sheer coincidence, I was listening to a talk yesterday, probably from a conference, um About a guy from uh Google, I think, who who was talking about like asking people what did what do you think this platform started out as versus what it was now? And like I've always known this because I used to use it myself, but Amazon started out as a books website, just just books, and just new books, and now it sells almost anything you can think of, and you know, new second hand, and it's a platform for other sellers. Um Twitter, Twitter started out as an internal communications um platform for developers, and that explains why it was a was it 140 characters initially, yeah. Because it was a an internal texting service, an old texting technology was limited to 140 characters. Like, even if you look at like a Nokia 50 or whatever, they've got a a t a character limit, and it was because it was based on the same technology, and now that's Twitter and that's a huge platform. Um but like you know, almost everything that exists now, like Instagram, Instagram was literally um an app for putting filters on photographs, and then they added a community to it where you could upload your photograph to see to show people the filters you'd apply to it, and now they're getting rid of it of uh photographs and it's going to become a video uh platform that's that where there's overlap with um like TikTok and Snapchat and stuff, it's it's cannibalised all the time. No, well yeah, I'm already sick of it. I'm you know, I've I've not really used it properly since uh start of 2020, really. I just I can't face it anymore, it's terrible. Um but um to kind of loop back, if one of you mentioned uh like calling stuff an MVP, what really annoys me is then when people start to introduce variations of a term that's already like questionable. So you start getting there's a couple I've heard, but one of them's minable lovable product.

SPEAKER_04: 42:05

Which I think is even more vague.

SPEAKER_01: 42:09

Yeah, well, uh but but why are you making something that you don't love anyway? Like, do you do you why are you doing this job if you don't love what you're doing anyway? It's so it's so subjective that term. But why why does it have to be a differentiate like why do you have to define between viable and lovable? Why can't the thing that why why can't the thing that you're doing that's viable? Like it's almost admitting it's almost admitting that MVP is shit, isn't it? Really? You've got an alternative.

SPEAKER_04: 42:41

It's a it's a company turning around and saying, we're releasing now our minimum lovable product. Um the what we think though is that it's perfectly viable for you not to love what we do. And it's perfectly viable for us not to love what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01: 42:59

But if a if a company said that externally, like the so the one thing is that I've assumed right up until now that minimal minimum minimum lovable product is like an internal turn of phrase. Because if someone if that got out and you referred to a product you've created as the minimum the minimum lovable product, I'd be like, Well, what was all the other stuff you'd sold me then? Like, was that did you hate that? Did you think it wasn't quite good enough? It's such a strange message to use externally. I wonder if anyone's actually even thought about that.

SPEAKER_04: 43:35

Well, I wonder if if in fact what we've ended up with is translation on translation on translation, because minimum lovable could actually be seen as a kind of rebuttal to minimum viable. Yeah, yeah. Because because of course it implies that there is there is no minimum viable. You've got to do what you create and what you love. But what I've seen is that that's been taken very seriously and along the same lines, so it's just an extension of minimum viable as opposed to a a a um a response to it as opposed to a it seems to me to be like appeasing the people who hate the term MVP.

SPEAKER_05: 44:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 44:16

And it's like, don't worry, we're we're swinging the pendulum back the other way now because we're sick of hearing. Yeah, there's a different letter in there.

SPEAKER_04: 44:23

I think I've heard minimum delightful product as well, yeah, as a UX term. Um that's even vaguer, isn't it? Well, again, I mean it depends on your user research, as all these things do. Um but can you have oh, I'm a little bit delighted. Well, yeah, it's yeah, exactly. The minimum level of delight I I could experience is just a different word, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01: 44:49

You wouldn't use delight if you were a little bit delighted.

SPEAKER_04: 44:51

No, exactly. But I'm experiencing I mean, what would be minimum delightful? Like, um you know, you like expect beans, and it turns out you've got beans and sausage.

SPEAKER_01: 45:03

This is yeah, this is a really nice soup, uh, but and there's only one fly in it.

SPEAKER_05: 45:11

Is it a delighted fly? Oh that's it. Oh, it depends on the fly.

SPEAKER_01: 45:17

It depends on the soup. Maybe they should reach it. Do you remember Angel Delight? Maybe they should call that minimum viable angel delight. Not viable. Minimum minimum angel delightful witch.

SPEAKER_02: 45:33

Minimum minimum angel delight. I mean angel delight.

SPEAKER_04: 45:39

It's I've seen that film. Oh god. It's um that that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_05: 45:47

Alright, so I want to let's let's um if you want to know what we think you should be doing, tune in to the extended Patreon episode now.

SPEAKER_01: 46:01

We might have to call it bag of fish eyes or something. I think I'm gonna give it a few.

SPEAKER_00: 46:13

Uh yeah. That's my that's my wrestler.

SPEAKER_05: 46:21

Yeah, but it's tight, we're gonna reuse our the yeah, I'd like to think you were called NVP.

SPEAKER_04: 46:31

Very good.

SPEAKER_05: 46:33

Nicholas viable product, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 46:35

Mix mixverney personality.

SPEAKER_01: 46:44

So uh so welcome to UX Tombola. We're gonna so if you've never listened to UX Tumbol uh before, what the hell have you been doing with your life? But what basically what we do is we spend the next 15-20 minutes, uh, we randomly pick out a subject and we discuss the UX of that subject. So um, is it good, is it bad, is it perfect, does it need to be tweaked? And then special guest, uh Mark Steele comes on board and gives us Steeler gives us an impromptu advert from his bolt from the Bolton arcade.

SPEAKER_05: 47:22

So right, without further ado, I'm gonna go if we were like going like shit, someone else has come in then.

SPEAKER_01: 47:30

I've just realized that the tombola machine is broken. Oh yeah. Uh so I'm gonna have to uh I'm gonna have to pick one myself. Were you frolicking in the tombola? I was well, Mark came round to stay and he was sleeping in it. Yeah, and he's he's gummed up the works with mustache wax. Well, at least I think it's mustache wax. I haven't queried that.

SPEAKER_04: 47:55

Is that just to just to create just to clarify that's gunged up the works of the tombola machine, not um Nick's VP?

SPEAKER_01: 48:09

Right.

SPEAKER_07: 48:10

Or both.

SPEAKER_01: 48:13

I need to do a song as well. Oh yeah, come on. Um yeah. UX Tumboler, what you gonna do when a six-foot tumboler machine falls on you? Will you break your leg? Will you break your arm? Or will you escape without any harm? UX Tumboler. I meant that on the screen as well. That's good amazing.

SPEAKER_07: 48:42

Right, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 48:47

That's the top.

SPEAKER_01: 48:48

Oh, I've got one. That was it. There we go. There we go. I think mine were better, to be honest.

SPEAKER_07: 48:54

Well you this is fucking tough.

SPEAKER_01: 49:00

It always is when we get to this point and we'll start talking about the serious stuff. This is what this is what everyone tunes in for. That's why we put it at the end. Yeah. So the UX of button flies. What?

SPEAKER_05: 49:13

Oh button flies. Interesting.

SPEAKER_04: 49:17

I currently have five pairs of tra five pairs of trousers at the tailor at the second. Uh what are you wearing now? Nothing. You win in the that's for me with me to know on our um faster horses only fans to find out. I'm gonna set that up now. It'll be me wearing a picture of uh not what? It'll be a picture of me wearing regular black trousers. But actually no, tell them it'll be it'll be a picture of you wearing jeans.

SPEAKER_07: 49:54

Oh sexy, whole business kind of forbidden content over my dead body, exactly, jeans and a waistcoat.

SPEAKER_04: 50:07

Oh my god. Yeah, yeah. Oh brown slip-ons, a state agent number three, please.

SPEAKER_01: 50:16

Boot cut blue jeans and brown slip-ons, yeah, yeah. Oh, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit there.

SPEAKER_04: 50:22

Well, wearing a jacket with elbow pads on it.

SPEAKER_01: 50:26

A leather jacket with suede elbow pads on it.

SPEAKER_04: 50:31

Do we uh want to talk about um button flies? Buttonflies, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 50:37

Yeah, is there a particular problem that you've encountered, T and Nick, that we can solve?

SPEAKER_01: 50:43

I mean, almost certainly people with motor skill impediments, um, if that's the right word, would would struggle with buttonflies, surely. Oh left-handed people would probably struggle with button flies, I'm assuming.

SPEAKER_04: 50:57

There are loads of accessibility needs around clothing in general. Yeah. Um, I mean, for example, my nephew is autistic and so he hasn't got the attention spam. Um well, he's got a pathological demand avoidance, so he's not got the inclination either, to sit there whilst his mum's dressing him uh and try and attach a fly. I'll I'd stipulate he's 10 years old. He's not like 30. Um whilst he's fastening his f his um fly. So it's just the the it's something that is like we talk about a lot on UX Tombowler, it's an artifact that hasn't been addressed as part of the full solution, it's just been designed on top of and designed on top of.

SPEAKER_01: 51:43

Fun fact, it seemed as though we're kind of tangentially talking about this. Do you know why women's clothes button up the other way around? I've I've got a feeling you might know this, Mike. To be honest, I've been told it, but I don't remember why. So it goes back to the days where rich people had servants and ladies in waiting who would dress them and women would be dressed by their servants, and if you button if you if you reverse the buttons from how they are on male's clothes, it's easier for the person to button them up for you, which is why women's clothing is the other way around.

SPEAKER_04: 52:18

I see, I see.

SPEAKER_01: 52:20

Yeah, it does. That's a you again, that's a UX that's a UX solution, I guess.

SPEAKER_04: 52:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um a very specific one. And I must admit, um I know a lot about men's clothing, uh, very little about women's sartorial needs. Yeah and I don't care for them either. I'm speaking in this in this entire equation, I'm talking about as someone rather who uh who always has a buttonfly on my uh trousers because I'm always wearing trousers. Um I'm either wearing trousers or creating content for OnlyFans. It's like the two states existing. So what where do I sit in this? Because I've got flies on trousers that are um so I've got a a suit that is um it's called a travel suit, an artright travel suit, and it's a 1930s cutter suit uh with very, very high trousers as you because I don't know if you know this, but Victorian and and early Edwardian and as the trousers developed, but only recently have they moved down to our hips. They used to rest quite far above your navel, um, and then you'd obviously have your braces to keep them up, but I mean that you'd have a big old belt of fabric as part of the trouser that would sit uh a bit like a gumberbund, if you will, um on your abdomen. Um so they and again when you do that, it's buttons all the way up. It's just another part of the trouser. Um so I think what we've got because trousers are I mean that's almost like a shirt at that point, isn't it? Yeah, basically. Um and interestingly, again, the shirt the look the kind of UX of the shirt is interesting as well because what's happened is it's not really changed at all since uh like tunics in the Regency period. All that's happened is the buttons are now all the way down, the collar is attached, and then they've nipped and tucked and nipped and tucked and nipped and tucked. Because I I, for example, wear sleeve garters, and that used sleeve garters hold my sleeve up. Um that used to be incredibly per incredibly incredibly pertinent. Used to be incredibly pertinent where because sleeves only came in like extra long length.

SPEAKER_01: 54:50

I thought it was to stop and bunching up when you put your jacket on as well.

SPEAKER_04: 54:55

Um it may be, but the primary use of a sleeve garter is and it might be how it's being marketed now as well, um, because it it doesn't really do that. I still have to pull my cuff back down my trouser sleeve. Uh my trouser sleeve.

SPEAKER_02: 55:11

Otherwise known as a leg. I don't put my arms through leg holes. You've already gone through the tubers' sleeve indeed.

SPEAKER_04: 55:22

Yeah, I'm fucking dumb. I can't I can't fucking speak, much less dress myself. Um but yeah, that's what happened to the shirt. Uh they were one size fits all, and then because manufacturing methods became easier, tailor-in for them became standardized. You were able to get different sizes, and now you can you the primary measurement for getting a well-fitting shirt is actually your neck measurement now.

SPEAKER_01: 55:50

Um I've got a big old fat neck as well. But uh we'll talk about that another time. So we've got that in the Tambola machine way too uh mixed fat neck.

SPEAKER_05: 56:04

So button flies. I think button button flies were invented um to kneel button to combat Eric fly from them later to um to combat, yeah. The um the so kind of it used to be in the was it my miners, uh well gold in the gold rush, and they used to have buttons, and um because it was just then they just have these overalls of jeans, and the buttons came from those. Um but yeah, the the I I remember when when I first met my father-in-law, um, we had a discussion about um buttonflies, uh and he's a biker, and he said he hates buttonflies because if you've ever tried uh to ride a motorbike with a buttonfly, you just get very cold genitalia so this and this was one of my first conversations with father-in-law.

SPEAKER_04: 57:12

It sounds like is your wife either an only child or without brothers? Because it sounds like your father-in-law was waiting for someone to talk to this about.

SPEAKER_05: 57:24

Oh, yeah, it learned that the hard way. That's your siblings. She's uh she's the oldest of five girls. So yeah, yeah, that explains that. So it's probably been on his mind for about 20 years.

SPEAKER_01: 57:37

It's such that's I can confirm that that's correct, though. I used to ride a motorbike, yeah, and I found that out the hard way. I used to wear Levi's twister jeans, and they've got a button fly, and yeah, it was uh it was chilly at best. But I mean my my major I was just gonna say my major concern with with button flies, which I discovered from wearing the same pair of pants, is that the a button as opposed to a zip tends to pop open. Oh when you're out in public can be quite problematic, particularly if you enjoy to go commando.

SPEAKER_04: 58:12

Not that I do, but I mean let's talk logistics here because have you popped up or have you burst open? There's a difference.

SPEAKER_01: 58:25

Well, yeah, no, sadly I haven't it was difficult to contain the beast within and the from the scenes.

SPEAKER_02: 58:35

I'm thinking that yeah but VP stands for the vice president.

SPEAKER_04: 58:45

If you're um VP if your trousers only popping open, there's a good chance that the hole of Lord and Sundry isn't falling out with it. Spain's kind of what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01: 58:56

It wasn't it wasn't busting for lack of space. I guess it was it was very much um they were old jeans and a sat funny and they just somehow unbuttoned themselves. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 59:13

At least that's what you told the police officer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 59:19

I had to explain the uh carefully laid out present of pornographic magazines, though.

SPEAKER_04: 59:29

A very strange activity in a supermarket. They just fell off the shelf like that.

SPEAKER_05: 59:38

It's not like you're banned from all Astas across the country.

SPEAKER_01: 59:42

Actually, no, but we'd won't have time for that story. That's a different reason.

SPEAKER_05: 59:47

Yeah. Nice. So what's our solution? To book zips. That's our solution, Nick. Even zips have its problem. What about val Valcro?

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:06

I'm gonna be controversial, and I'm sure both of you are gonna be disgusted and disagreeable. Just jogging pants. Just go everywhere.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:16

I mean walk out in public. Uh wearing jogging pants. A very well-dressed person assault you across the face.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:28

It's a really quick thing, and it's one of those kind of things where if you're not listening, you're missing that he calls them calls jogging pants giving up on life pants.

SPEAKER_05: 1:00:42

Also, I think that's good.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:54

You're operating a fly. Um and you're not paying it a potential. It's a dangerous area anyway.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:01

Like it's not potentially side effects of having a magnetic field down and around your particulars.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:10

I don't know if you're if you're aware of this. What was the magnetic poles?

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:16

Magnetic holes over either of them. It's my pole, I'm gonna try my triple magnet. Flies are probably more common for women.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:20

Flies in general. Somehow some some don't smash up for more choices. Female clothes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:36

Tailoring in general women's clothes.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:39

Yeah, yeah, because what happened is out expectations for men to dress well chopped chopped a fucking plate. Women's expectations expect expectations of automatic offer. Like a kind of fucking scartorial horror story I exist in me.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:06

I don't need to tell it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:20

I'm a still with another contraction for you. Have you ever struggled with your personal five public policies? I'm going to expose yourself four times of a cost amendment in one story. Well, it's MP. That's electromagnetic. Expose yourself to the general populace with no recourse.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:13

I would have any. That's only my favorite part of this podcast. That's my favorite part of any podcast.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:39

I just have no idea. One day I'm gonna say one and it'll just be like, I'm Max Taylor.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:46

I want to tell you that love you by this is love you by another episode in the back.

SPEAKER_05: 1:06:14

Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe on your preferred streaming service and follow us on Twitter at Fasterhorses UA. Catch you in a couple of weeks for another episode, and we'll see you soon.