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)

A systematic mapping study of HCI practice research

Human–computer interaction (HCI) practice has emerged as a research domain in the HCI field and is growing. The need to transfer HCI practices to the industry began significantly with the works of Nielsen on usability engineering. To date, methods and techniques for designing, evaluating, and implementing interactive systems for human use have continued to emerge. It is, therefore, justified to conduct a systematic mapping study to determine the landscape of HCI practice research. A Systematic Mapping Study method was used to map 142 studies according to research type, topic, and contribution. These were then analyzed to determine an overview of HCI practice research. The objective was to analyze studies on HCI practice and present prominent issues that characterize the HCI practice research landscape. Second, to identify pressing challenges regarding HCI practices in software/systems development companies. The results show that HCI practice research has steadily increased since 2012. The majority of the studies explored focused on evaluation research that largely contributed to the evaluation methods or processes. Most of the studies were on design tools and techniques, design methods and contexts, design work and organizational culture, and collaboration and team communication. Interviews, case studies, and survey methods have been prominently used as research methods. HCI techniques are mostly used during the initial phase of development and during evaluation. HCI practice challenges in companies are mostly process-related and on performance of usability and user experience activities. The major challenge seems to be to find a way to collect and incorporate user feedback in a timely manner, especially in agile processes. There are areas identified in this study as needing more research

Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming: 18th International Conference, XP 2017, Cologne, Germany, May 22-26, 2017, Proceedings

agile software development; lean development; scrum; project management; software developmen

Improvement of performance indicators after Scrum re-implementation in software development teams

Dissertação de mestrado em Engineering Project ManagementThe business world is more competitive than ever, and companies must adapt to a very fast passed consumer behaviour. Small and medium companies must be quick on their feet and have the ability to rapidly answer to the shifts in trends and products. In order to do so, businesses have shifted from Traditional project management to an Agile project management. Even though Agile project management has become very trendy, implementing an Agile framework requires work and an adaption period. Living Map adopted an Agile framework – Scrum – one year ago, but because they changed their Scrum Master, the process gradually broke and became problematic. This research was proposed by the company, to re-implement Scrum and analyse the changes on the performance indicators of the Software Development teams. The main goal was to collect data after each Sprint completion and compare it to old data collected previously by the researcher whilst being an intern. The first step was to re-define and re-implement Scrum within the two development teams. The researcher acted as the Scrum Master of both teams in order to be closer to them. This dissertation describes the re-implementation of Scrum, the adaptive measurements that were made during a 5-iteration cycle and the changes on the performance indicators that originated from it. In general, not only did every performance indicators had a significant growth but also, the understanding of Scrum increased, and the overall satisfaction of the Teams also improved.O mundo de negócios tem-se tornado mais competitivo do que nunca. As empresas têm de se adaptar às alterações rápidas do comportamento dos consumidores. Pequenas e médias empresas têm de ter a habilidade de responder rapidamente às mudanças das tendências e dos produtos. De forma a conseguirem fazer isto, há uma mudança da gestão de projetos tradicional para gestão de projetos ágil. Porém, implementar uma mentalidade ágil requer esforço e um período de adaptação. A empresa Living Map adotou um framework ágil - Scrum - há um ano atrás, mas por terem mudado de Scrum Master, o processo acabou por se deteriorar e tornar problemático. A pesquisa de reimplementar o Scrum em duas equipas de desenvolvimento de software foi proposta pela empresa, e o investigador desempenhou o papel de Scrum Master de ambas as equipas. O objetivo principal foi recolher dados após o fim de cada Sprint e comparar os mesmos com dados recolhidos de Sprints anteriores. O primeiro passo foi redefinir e reimplementar Scrum em duas equipas de desenvolvimento de software. Esta dissertação descreve a reimplementação de Scrum, as medidas adaptativas que foram tomadas durante um ciclo de 5 iterações e as mudanças dos indicadores de performance que ocorreram. Em geral, não só os indicadores de performance tiveram um crescimento significativo, mas o conhecimento sobre Scrum e a satisfação das equipas melhorou

An automated framework to support agile adoption coaching

This dissertation aims to assist Agile champions in their organisations with their Agile adoption journey. Such a journey typically starts with identifying the Agile challenges and then determining how to address these challenges in their unique context (Hajjdiab & Taleb, 2011a:9). This study provides a manual together with an automated framework to showcase a list of prioritised Agile challenges and their corresponding possible solutions. Before reaching this automated framework, the research presented a comprehensive list of Agile adoption challenges, possible solutions and a mapping between them. The automated framework, also named Agile Adoption Coach (AAC), is in the form of an online tool: www.agilesense.coza/aac. The critical quantitative contribution to this study was the evaluation of the AAC by Scrum Masters and Agile coaches to determine the acceptability of the tool. The research has shown that there is, on average, an 86% acceptability rating for this tool in South Africa.School of ComputingM. Sc. (Computing

An agile information flow consolidator for delivery of quality software projects: technological perspective from a South African start-up

In today’s knowledge-based economy, modern organisations understand the importance of technology in their quest to be considered global leaders. South African markets like others worldwide are regularly flooded with the latest technology trends which can complicate the acquisition, use, management and maintenance of software. To achieve a competitive edge, companies tend to leverage agile methods with the best possible combination of innovative supporting tools as a key differentiator. Software technology firms are in this light faced with determining how to leverage technology and efficient development processes for them to consistently deliver quality software projects and solutions to their customer base. Previous studies have discussed the importance of software development processes from a project management perspective. African academia has immensely contributed in terms of software development and project management research which has focused on modern frameworks, methodologies as well as project management techniques. While the current research continues with this tradition by presenting the pertinence of modern agile methodologies, it additionally further describes modern agile development processes tailored in a sub-Saharan context. The study also aims novelty by showing how innovative sometimes disruptive technology tools can contribute to producing African software solutions to African problems. To this end, the thesis contains an experimental case study where a web portal is prototyped to assist firms with the management of agile project management and engineering related activities. Literature review, semi-structure interviews as well as direct observations from the industry use case are used as data sources. Underpinned by an Activity Theory analytical framework, the qualitative data is analysed by leveraging content and thematic oriented techniques. This study aims to contribute to software engineering as well as the information systems body of knowledge in general. The research hence ambitions to propose a practical framework to promote the delivery of quality software projects and products. For this thesis, such a framework was designed around an information system which helps organizations better manage agile project management and engineering related activities.Information SciencePh. D. (Information Systems

Digital Product Perception and User Satisfaction Relationship: Can They Create Feedback Intention?

Agile product development principles emphasize user collaboration and continuous improvement. It sometimes bothers users if they have less time, commitment and knowledge to become involved in the lengthy process of product development. Giving online feedback could be another way of contributing to product improvement. However, not all users are willing to leave reviews on online platforms. This study attempts to uncover the factors behind user feedback intention and the relationship between user roles in an agile approach. The questionnaire was completed by 113 respondents from all over Indonesia who have knowledge and experience in using digital products. The data was processed further by applying the PLS-SEM technique using the SmartPLS 3 application. The proposed model supported the positive influence of product perception on user satisfaction, and user satisfaction’s positive impact on feedback intention. Product perception is the first-order construct of attitude and perceived usefulness; meanwhile, perceived quality is influenced by product perception. This study's theoretical contribution sheds light on the relationship between user satisfaction, perception and feedback intention. Moreover, it provides practitioners practical implications towards understanding how to gather user feedback to support the initial idea in product improvement using an agile approach