Agile Requirements Engineering: A systematic literature review

Nowadays, Agile Software Development (ASD) is used to cope with increasing complexity in system development. Hybrid development models, with the integration of User-Centered Design (UCD), are applied with the aim to deliver competitive products with a suitable User Experience (UX). Therefore, stakeholder and user involvement during Requirements Engineering (RE) are essential in order to establish a collaborative environment with constant feedback loops. The aim of this study is to capture the current state of the art of the literature related to Agile RE with focus on stakeholder and user involvement. In particular, we investigate what approaches exist to involve stakeholder in the process, which methodologies are commonly used to present the user perspective and how requirements management is been carried out. We conduct a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) with an extensive quality assessment of the included studies. We identified 27 relevant papers. After analyzing them in detail, we derive deep insights to the following aspects of Agile RE: stakeholder and user involvement, data gathering, user perspective, integrated methodologies, shared understanding, artifacts, documentation and Non-Functional Requirements (NFR). Agile RE is a complex research field with cross-functional influences. This study will contribute to the software development body of knowledge by assessing the involvement of stakeholder and user in Agile RE, providing methodologies that make ASD more human-centric and giving an overview of requirements management in ASD.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2013-46928-C3-3-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-71938-RED

Identifying Agile Requirements Engineering Patterns in Industry

Agile Software Development (ASD) is gaining in popularity in today´s business world. Industry is adopting agile methodologies both to accelerate value delivery and to enhance the ability to deal with changing requirements. However, ASD has a great impact on how Requirements Engineering (RE) is carried out in agile environments. The integration of Human-Centered Design (HCD) plays an important role due to the focus on user and stakeholder involvement. To this end, we aim to introduce agile RE patterns as main objective of this paper. On the one hand, we will describe our pattern mining process based on empirical research in literature and industry. On the other hand, we will discuss our results and provide two examples of agile RE patterns. In sum, the pattern mining process identifies 41 agile RE patterns. The accumulated knowledge will be shared by means of a web application.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2013-46928-C3-3-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2016-76956-C3-2-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-71938-RED

Requirements engineering related usability techniques adopted in agile development processes

Over the last decade there has been a growing interest in the integration of agile software development process (ASDP) and user-centred design (UCD). However, there are no papers that study which usability techniques related to requirements engineering are being adopted in the ASDP, and there are no formalized proposals for their adoption. Objective: Identify which techniques related to requirements engineering activities are being adopted in the ASDP and determine how they are being adopted. Method: We have conducted a systematic mapping study (SMS) to retrieve the literature reporting the application of usability techniques in the ASDP. We analysed these techniques using a catalogue of techniques compiled by software engineering researchers. We then determined the manner in which the techniques that are being used in the ASDP were adopted. Results: The agile community is very much interested in adopting usability techniques. The most used techniques are Personas, contextual inquiry and prototyping. Conclusions: This research offers an overview of the adoption of usability techniques related to requirements engineering in ASDPs and reports how they are being adopted. We found that some of the techniques are being adapted for adoption.This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports FLEXOR and “Realizando Experimentos en la Industria del Software: Comprensión del Paso de Laboratorio a la Realidad” projects (TIN2014-52129-R and TIN2014-60490-P, respectively) and the eMadrid-CM “Investigación y Desarrollo de Tecnologías Educativas en la Comunidad de Madrid” project (S2013/ICE-2715

An agile information-architecture-driven approach for the development of user-centered interactive software

This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in Interacción '15: Proceedings of the XVI International Conference on Human Computer Interaction, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2829875.2829919.For the most part, Information Architecture processes include sets of activities and techniques to be carried out by the development team to create interactive applications effectively, involving usability concerns at every development step. In fact, plenty of process models have already been proposed to bridge the gap between User-Centered Development and Information Architecture, empowering the development team to build usable applications successfully. However, the combination of User- Centered Development and Information Architecture paradigms sometimes results in cumbersome process models containing lots of phases and activities to be considered, which increases the cycle time to have partial and validated software increments readily. As less effort has been devoted to speed up the usable Information Architecture development, the aim of this paper is to address such problem. To do so, we present Scrum-UIA, an agile and usable development process driven by the Information Architecture. This process is intended to develop web applications by splitting up responsibilities and tasks, and decreasing the time to perform technical activities, in order to readily obtain usable software increments.This work has been supported by the funding projects «eMadrid», granted by the Madrid Research Council (project code S2013/ICE-2715) and «Flexor», granted by the Spanish Government (project code TIN2014-52129-R)

The Agile UX Development Lifecycle: Combining Formative Usability and Agile Methods

This paper contributes a method variation that helps cross-functional teams combine both formative usability and agile methods to develop interactive systems. Both methods are iterative, continuous and focus on delivering value to users, which makes their combination possible. The “agile UX development lifecycle” supports and facilitates the synchronization of the steps involved in both formative usability and agile sprints in an operable manner and is intended for design and development settings. We present a case study that illustrates the extent to which this tool meets the needs of real-world cross-functional teams, describing the gains in efficiency it can provide but also guidelines for increasing the benefits gained from this combination in design and development settings

Applying User Experience and User-Centered Design Software Processes in Undergraduate Mobile Application Development Teaching

Agile methods in undergraduate courses have been explored by various authors looking to close the gap between industry and professional profiles. We have structured an Android application development course based on a tailored agile process for development of educational software tools. This process is based on both Scrum and Extreme Programming in combination with User Experience (UX) and User-Centered Design (UCD) approaches. The course is executed in two phases: the first half of the course's semester presents theory on agile and mobile applications development, the latter half is managed as a workshop where students develop for an actual client. The introduction of UX and UCD exploiting the close relationship with stakeholders expected from an agile process can enhance Quality in Use features. Since 2019 two of the projects have been extended in agreement between the client and students. Students, clients and users have found value in the generated products.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, conferenc

Determinants for Successful Agile Collaboration between UX Designers and Software Developers in a Complex Organisation

Agile and User-centered design processes have been reported to frequently putting contradictory demands on people working within these methodological frameworks. The current research addresses this point by focussing on the crucial relationship between software developer and designer. An online survey, a contextual inquiry, and a diary study were employed with 107 developers and designers in a large media organization to determine the factors for success in agile development cycles. The results from the survey show that while developers and designers have similar levels of satisfaction with agile processes, there are differences in the factors predicting those ratings. Developers are happier with the wider teamwork but want more access to and close collaboration with designers, while the latters’ concern was the quality of the wider teamwork. Additional contextual inquiries and a diary study with pairs of designers and developers reflected the survey findings that close cooperation (and proximity) was essential for improving communication, reducing inefficiencies, and avoiding suboptimal products being released. However, organizational processes, the setup of the work environment, and managerial traditions meant that this close collaboration and localized decision-making was found difficult to maintain. Results from the survey, the contextual inquiry, and the diary study found six factors for success from collaborations emerged

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

Lessons Learned to Improve the UX Practices in Agile Projects Involving Data Science and Process Automation

Context: User-Centered Design and Agile methodologies focus on human issues. Nevertheless, agile methodologies focus on contact with contracting customers and generating value for them. Usually, the communication between end users and the agile team is mediated by customers. However, they do not know the problems end users face in their routines. Hence, UX issues are typically identified only after the implementation, during user testing and validation. Objective: Aiming to improve the understanding and definition of the problem in agile projects, this research investigates the practices and difficulties experienced by agile teams during the development of data science and process automation projects. Also, we analyze the benefits and the teams' perceptions regarding user participation in these projects. Method: We collected data from four agile teams in an academia-industry collaboration focusing on delivering data science and process automation solutions. Therefore, we applied a carefully designed questionnaire answered by developers, scrum masters, and UX designers. In total, 18 subjects answered the questionnaire. Results: From the results, we identify practices used by the teams to define and understand the problem and to represent the solution. The practices most often used are prototypes and meetings with stakeholders. Another practice that helped the team to understand the problem was using Lean Inceptions. Also, our results present some specific issues regarding data science projects. Conclusion: We observed that end-user participation can be critical to understanding and defining the problem. They help to define elements of the domain and barriers in the implementation. We identified a need for approaches that facilitate user-team communication in data science projects and the need for more detailed requirements representations to support data science solutions