These steps outline the approach we took:

• STEP 1: Brainstorm the experience from the user's perspective: We first brainstormed as a group what the virtual scrapbook and clippings feature might look like. This took the form of a workshop guided by our User Experience specialist. She encouraged us to draw a storyboard to show the flow when using the web clippings tool.
• STEP 2: Test the basic user experience: Our UX specialist then took our collective ideas away and assembled some wireframes which we could test out with people on the street (Guerrilla usability testing).
• STEP 3: Breakdown of User Stories: Once we worked out the basic flow of clipping and pasting to a scrapbook, we broke the feature into User Stories. We used the User Story Mapping approach described in Chapter 10, Using Product Roadmaps to Guide Software Delivery, to create a simple story map.
• STEP 4: Identify areas of risk or uncertainty: We reviewed the story map and identified areas that were likely to impact our strategy. In particular, we were concerned that building a scrapbook that was robust and secure would take too long for our purpose of quickly validating this new feature. We proposed a spike (a mini-hackathon) to identify possible alternatives.
• STEP 5: Shortcut to validation, build the minimum!: We realized during our spike/mini-hackathon that we wouldn't need to build out the full scrapbook feature. Instead, we could use a slightly sneaky approach where we offered the clipping tool alone, and then once the audience member had clipped the text or picture, we would ask them to sign in or sign up before proceeding. If they clicked either option, we knew we had them, and they would likely use the feature. We also showed them an apologetic message: "Thanks for trying this new feature, but it isn't finished yet, we're just trying to discover the level of interest. Leave us your email address, and we'll be in contact soon." This shortcut is known as the "button to nowhere" because even though it's a dead-end for our user, we still manage to validate our idea.
• STEP 6: Measure and learn: So, while feeling somewhat dastardly because we hadn't given our audience a fully working feature, we spent the next five weeks with the "button to nowhere" feature live on our website. We felt less guilty after our analytics reported less engagement than we hoped for. We tweaked the user experience of the new feature to attract people's attention as they scrolled down the page but to no avail. Few people clipped an item, and even fewer clicked to sign up or sign in when asked.

We had failed and failed quickly, with relatively little effort in comparison to a full build, a failure that was a win for the Lean Startup MVP and the build-measure-learn mindset!