Every now and then, somebody comes along who helps you look at things from a fresh perspective. They take something you’ve been working at, reframe it in their own way, and return it to you better than ever—and in the process, prove once again two heads are better than one. Lean UX is that somebody.

Entrepreneurs like Eric Ries and Andrew Chen are busily advocating an approach for lean start-ups to take a customer-centered view of their products and services. The argument goes that a focus on identifying and responding to your customers’ needs allows lean start-ups to create better, more successful products faster. This understanding and focus on users as the driver of product development is, of course, the heart of user centered design.

The business community is awakening to the immense, transformative power of UX. The time has come for us to accept the responsibility and use it wisely. Cooper is partnering with LUXr: the lean user experience residency on a program for designers, product managers, and developers to share tools, techniques, and attitudes of lean and agile user experience. Join us for a few days then bring your newfound energy and experience back to your team—or bring them along!

LUXi: the lean user experience intensive, is a two-day workshop focused around four big themes:

• Users first! Design is bigger than wireframes and mock-ups 
• Being generative and decisive, and the importance of making things physical 
• Recognizing hypotheses and validating them 
• Rapid cycles of think/make/check

The intensive will be facilitated by Janice Fraser of LUXr and Tim McCoy, Cooper’s Director of Integrated Product Development. If you are a designer, product manager, or developer working in a lean or agile team (or wish you were), come hang with us and reframe the way you think about design, your products, and your organization.

The workshop will be held in Cooper's San Francisco offices on January 26 and 27, 2011. Information and enrollment is available at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/139435.