End User Participation in Information Systems Development: Why does Collaboration Remain Elusive?

This research in progress proposes to look at end user participation (EUP) in the system development life cycle (SDLC) through the dual lenses of Representation Theory and shared affordances. It is known that EUP results in increased end user satisfaction of the information system (IS), yet using EUP during the SDLC remains uncommon. Should EUP occur throughout the SDLC an IS may be developed that converges on a faithful representation of the shared affordances required for all stakeholders, specifically the end user. Effective use is understudied, and this research further delineates between use and effective use. With a better understanding of the impediments to EUP during the SDLC it may be possible to develop antidotes to increase participation and hence success rate

Agile User Experience Design: A Design Science Enquiry

This paper presents a qualitative analysis of an information systems design study within the context of agile software development based on conceptually different two design approaches: Current Agile Process (CAP) and Enhanced Agile Process (EAP). Eight agile software professionals and one user experience designer were recruited from the industry to form two small agile teams, where one agile software professional shared the product owner role in both teams. Each team undertook agile software product development based on exclusively one of the two conceptually different design approaches, CAP and EAP. Both teams used the same suite of user stories presented by the product owner. The progress of product development was assessed using four evaluation approaches: observation data comparison, debrief data comparison, individual system evaluation and comparative system evaluation. This paper presents the results of observation data comparison only. The results suggest that agile software development team that followed the enhanced agile process had more user experience focus in the design and the outcome of the product delivery proved to be somewhat richer in user experience. The paper also explores the research design, research process, developer perceptions as well as areas of shortcomings where further understanding and modelling effort is needed

UX design in agile: a DSDM case study

Integrating User Experience (UX) design with agile development continues to be the subject of academic studies and practitioner discussions. Most of the existing literature focuses on SCRUM and XP, but in this paper we investigate a technical company who use DSDM. Unlike other agile methods, DSDM provides a configurable framework and a set of roles that covers the whole software development process. While elements of the UX design integration experience were similar to those reported with other agile methods, working practices to mitigate the challenges were identified using DSDM’s standard elements. Specifically, communication challenges were mitigated by extending two of DSDM’s standard roles. In addition, a change of focus between a design-led phase and a development-led phase of the project changed the communication challenges. Agile teams need to be aware that this change of focus can happen and the implications that it has for their work

The importance of integrating Thinking Design, User Experience and Agile methodologies to increase profitability

Since every company wants to make a big profit, it is necessary for every company to focus on the customer and his requirements. This paper discusses the advantages of the methodologies Design Thinking, User Experience Design and Agile and based on other research shows that their connection is important in practice because it leads to greater creativity, innovation and profitability. Various researches and considerations (from scientific papers) on the integration of design thinking, User experience and agile development are presented, and conclusions are made as to why it is good to use combined methods. The author of the paper created a picture, which is a key contribution of the paper, which shows the key features of each of the methodologies where a cross-section shows the importance of using all three methodologies together. Through the cross-section it can be seen that in practice all three methodologies focus on meeting the needs of product users (customers) because companies aim to keep customers satisfied because in this way they would provide a profit. User Experience focuses on making products usable and useful, desirable and affordable to customers (users). Design Thinking methodology offers the possibility of aligning the goal of a highly innovative project with maximum utility for users

Agile development and user experience design integration as an ongoing achievement in practice

Little is known about how Agile developers and UX designers integrate their work on a day-to-day basis. While accounts in the literature attempt to integrate Agile development and UX design by combining their processes and tools, the contradicting claims found in the accounts complicate extracting advice from such accounts. This paper reports on three ethnographically-informed field studies of the day-to-day practice of developers and designers in organisational settings. Our results show that integration is achieved in practice through (1) mutual awareness, (2) expectations about acceptable behaviour, (3) negotiating progress and (4) engaging with each other. Successful integration relies on practices that support and maintain these four aspects in the day-to-day work of developers and designers

Shared Understanding of the User Experience : A Case Study of Collaboration Between Developers and Designers

User experience has become vital for many software development projects but the software development methods and tools are not originally intended for it. Moreover, software development is fundamentally complex and an increasingly social profession. This shift towards designing for user experience as a diverse group has brought new challenges to software development. The objective of this study is to find how developers and designers form a shared understanding of the software system UX under development. Central theme are the activities of UX work: what are the methods in use (e.g. User-Centered Design, Agile) and how do they work in practice, that is, what kind of information developers and designers share and what kind of artifacts do they produce in collaboration. This study answers two research questions: (RQ1) How do developers and designers form a shared understanding of the software system UX under development; and (RQ2) What are the artifacts utilized in their collaboration. To answer the research questions, a single case study research was conducted by interviewing the employees of a Finnish startup company. The company develops enterprise resource planning software (ERP) for rental businesses. The results show that shared understanding of the UX is achieved with UX activities throughout the system’s lifecycle where the user participation is required from the beginning of new software development. Furthermore, the artifacts in combination with developers’ participation in some of the UX activities will convey the design intent to the implemented software

Supporting service design for web: Redesigning Aalto blogs

The increased capability of web technology has enabled more services to be provided through web platforms. The growth of such services naturally accelerates further evolution of the technology, resulting in increased learning curve. Many web development frameworks were introduced to overcome such difficulties, and together with web technology, these workarounds have also evolved rapidly. Modern web frameworks, and also platforms, provide rich eco-system that provide alternative solutions to web development. Some powerful content management systems (CMS) even enable a web service to be developed without any programming. This thesis aims to find further opportunities from these modern frameworks, by redesigning a university’s web self-publishing service through a CMS. In order to reorient and reposition the service to address wider range of users, the key components of the CMS to be focused on were identified through contextual study and in-depth interviews. The redesigned service was suggested by designing and developing a CMS theme through agile development process

Agile Development and User-Centered Design - a case study at Sony Mobile Communications AB

Syftet med detta examensarbete var att undersöka hur agil utveckling och användarcentrerad design kan kombineras i en utvecklingsprocess. Undersökningen baseras sig på den utvecklingsprocess med Scrum som används på en sektion vid avdelningen Applikationer och Service på Sony Mobile Communications AB i Lund, Sverige. Det första målet med examensarbetet var att förse sektionen med ett antal förslag på hur de kan förbättra sin utvecklingsprocess för att ytterligare kombinera agil utveckling och användarcentrerad design. Eftersom sektionen nyligen har startat ett projekt angående användbarhetstester med LTH (Lunds Tekniska Högskola) och kombinerar detta med deras utvecklingsprocess, var det angeläget att undersöka om det ger någon nytta tillbaka till utvecklingsprocessen. Därför var detta det andra målet med examensarbetet. För att kunna uppnå syftet och målen med examensarbetet genomfördes en casestudie där den nuvarande utvecklingsprocessen undersöktes, evaluerades och analyserades. Den metod som användes i studien var etnografisk och teammedlemmarna i utvecklingsteamen på sektionen användes som referensmaterial. För att undersöka användbarhetstesterna användes både teammedlemmarna och de testpersoner som deltog i testerna som referensmaterial. Resultatet av studien visar att användbarhetstesterna som utförs på sektionen ger något tillbaka och speciellt i ökad medvetenhet gällande användarupplevelsefrågor och användbarhetsfrågor. Denna medvetenhetsökning berör speciellt utvecklarna och produktägarna. När det kommer till undersökningen, evalueringen och analysen av den nuvarande utvecklingsprocess som används på sektionen resulterade det i fem stycken rekommendationer av hur processen ytterligare kan ta hänsyn till användarcentrerad design. Det sammanlagda utlåtandet av rekommendationerna är att den nuvarande processen måste i ett tidigare skedde kombinera användarcentrerad design genom att använda sig av fler användbarhetsmetoder och slutanvändare.The main purpose of this master´s thesis was to investigate how agile development and user-centered design can be combined in a development process. The target development process for this investigation was a development process at a section in the department Application and Service at Sony Mobile Communications AB in Lund, Sweden. The first goal of the thesis was to provide the section with a set of recommendations, concerning how they further can combine agile development and user-centered design in their development process. Furthermore, the section had started a pilot project concerning usability testing with LTH (The Faculty of Engineering at Lund University), and therefore it was interesting to know whether this gives something back in return on investment to the development process. Consequently, this was the second goal of the thesis. In order to fulfill the purpose and goals of the thesis a case study was performed. The performance resulted in an examination, evaluation and analysis regarding the current development process. The method used in the case study was ethnographical and the development teams at the section were used as reference material. Moreover, to be able to investigate the potential return on investment for the usability tests both development teams and test persons attending the test sessions were used as reference material. The result of the case study revealed a return on investment for the started usability tests and this investment the development teams most benefits from. The benefit of the development teams, especially the developers and product owners, is the increase of awareness towards user experience questions and usability questions. Furthermore, the examination, evaluation and analysis of the current development process resulted in five recommendations of how the development process at the section further can combine agile development and user-centered design. The outcome of these recommendations is that the current development process needs to combine user-centered design by more involvement of usability evaluation methods and end-users at an earlier stage

Integrating User eXperience Principles and Practices into Software Development Organizations: An Empirical Investigation

Background: To be effective, User eXperience (UX) principles and practices need to be integrated into development processes and organizations, what we refer to as UX integration. However, software companies often face various challenges that hinder a successful UX integration. Objective: The aim of this thesis is to facilitate and improve the current state of UX integration in the software industry. To that end, we present an empirical investigation of current UX integration challenges and success factors and analyze them in relation to other software quality characteristics, in particular, usability. Method: We performed a series of studies, mainly in the Swedish software industry and applied a variety of methods including interviews, observations, and workshops. We used Grounded Theory (GT) and thematic analysis to drive our data gathering and to analyze our data. Results: We showed that UX integration challenges and success factors are both technical and organizational, however, they mainly belong to the latter category. We found that various decisions that are made outside the authority of UX practitioners have an inevitable impact on enabling or prohibiting UX integration and that the integration is influenced by various changes that organizations undergo over time as well as planned UX initiatives. Our findings underline the similarities between UX integration and organizational change, in general, and Software Process Improvement (SPI) in particular. We also found that the known unique characteristics of UX (subjective, holistic, dynamic, context-dependent, and worthwhile) have implications not only for the day-to-day work of practitioners but also for UX integration. Based on our findings, we propose various UX integration principles and practices to help software companies in their integration efforts. Conclusion: We argue that to prevent a lopsided focus on the pragmatic aspect of UX in the software industry, software practitioners and researchers should explicitly differentiate between UX and other software quality characteristics, in particular, usability and address the unique characteristics of UX in their work. In addition, they should apply the existing body of knowledge in the two fields of organizational change and SPI especially to address the organizational issues concerning UX integration. Although our focus has been on UX, our findings also may shed light on integrating other multidisciplinary and emerging concepts into the complex context of software organizations