Collaboration between software developers and UI designers in agile software development teams : a literature survey and empirical experiences

Creating a user interface (UI) is often a part of software development. In the software industry designated UI designers work side by side with the developers in agile software development teams. While agile software processes have been researched, yet there is no general consensus on how UI designers should be integrated with the developing team. The existing research points towards the industry favoring tight collaboration between developers and UI designers by having them work together in the same team. The subject is gathering interest and different ways of integration is happening in the industry. In this thesis we researched the collaboration between developers and UI designers in agile software development. The goal was to understand the teamwork between the UI designers and developers working in the same agile software teams. The research was conducted by doing semi-structured theme interviews with UI designers and devel- opers individually. The interviewees were from consulting firms located in the Helsinki metropolitan are in Finland. The subjects reported about a recent project where they worked in an agile software team consisting of UI designers and developers. The data from the interviews was compared to the literature. Results of the interviews were similar to the findings from the literature for the most part. Finding a suitable process for the teamwork, co-location, good social relations and a an atmosphere of trust were factors present in the literature and the interviews. The importance of good software tools for communicating designs, and developers taking part in the UI designing process stood out from the interviews

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

Eye tracking in maritime immersive safe oceans technology

This paper presents the integration of eye tracking in the MarSEVR (Maritime Safety Education with VR) technology to increase the precision of the trainee focus on delivering the learning episodes of the technology with enhanced impressiveness and user engagement. MarSEVR is part of the Safe Oceans concept, a green ocean technology that integrates several VR safety training applications to reduce maritime accidents that result into human casualties, sea pollution and other environmental damages. The paper indicates the research delivery architecture driven by Hevner's design science in information systems Research for usability, use experience (UX) and effectiveness. Furthermore, this technology integration is approached from a game design perspective for user engagement but also from a cognitive and neuroscience perspective for pedagogical use and purposes. The paper addressees the impact of the eye tracking technology in the maritime sector operations, training market, and competitive research. Lastly areas of further research are presented and the efforts to link and align finger tracking and hand recognitions technologies with eye tracking for a more complete VR training environment

An Investigation of Why Low Code Platforms Provide Answers and New Challenges

Although the idea of low code development is not new, the market for these oftentimes platform-based development approaches is exponentially growing. Especially factors such as increasing affinity for technology development across all user groups, consumerization of development, and advancing digitalization are opening a new target group for the low code movement. The broad application possibilities of low code, as well as the benefits, are therefore getting more important for businesses. Especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), low code constitutes a promising avenue to survive and succeed in the rapidly changing world. However, a clear understanding regarding the application of this paradigm of software development in SMEs is still missing. To provide a coherent understanding of the phenomenon low code in SMEs, we review extant literature and conduct interviews, identifying potential application domains and conceptualizing the benefits and challenges of low code from a holistic perspective

Laadunhallinta startup-yrityksen ohjelmistoprojektissa

Progress in modern software development has enabled tiny prototypes that can be implemented with small budget and short schedule. Since proving the business ideas with fast prototyping has become so easy, the number of startup companies has begun to grow. A team with sufficient experience can implement a simple working prototype as fast as in weeks. Development of these simple prototypes can lead to poor quality of code and structure of the product, which can complicate the future development. This can become an issue if the business idea is indeed validated and proven to be successful. Additionally in startup environment, product quality usually means the value it brings to the customer. Because of this, continuous validation of quality is required throughout the life cycle of the product. This thesis discusses software quality in both traditional software development and software startup environment. Methods traditionally used for improving quality and their efficiency are presented. These methods are also joined to the quality methods recommended for software startup environment. Finally, this thesis presents an example project done for a software startup. Conclusions from this thesis include that the definition of quality and methods improving it vary between traditional software development and modern startup environment. In traditional software development, methods for improving quality are focused on technical activities discovering defects. In turn, modern methodologies concentrate more on people and processes. However, activities from traditional quality improvement can be applied to the methods recommended for startup environment

Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2021, which was held virtually during June 14-18, 2021. XP is the premier agile software development conference combining research and practice. It is a unique forum where agile researchers, practitioners, thought leaders, coaches, and trainers get together to present and discuss their most recent innovations, research results, experiences, concerns, challenges, and trends.  XP conferences provide an informal environment to learn and trigger discussions and welcome both people new to agile and seasoned agile practitioners. This year’s conference was held with the theme “Agile Turns Twenty While the World Goes Online”. The 11 full and 2 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 38 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: agile practices; process assessment; large-scale agile; and short contributions

A longitudinal explanatory case study of coordination in a very large development programme: The impact of transitioning from a first- to a second-generation large-scale agile development method

Large-scale agile development has gained widespread interest in the software industry, but it is a topic with few empirical studies of practice. Development projects at scale introduce a range of new challenges in managing a large number of people and teams, often with high uncertainty about product requirements and technical solutions. The coordination of teams has been identified as one of the main challenges. This study presents a rich longitudinal explanatory case study of a very large software development programme with 10 development teams. We focus on inter-team coordination in two phases: one that applies a first-generation agile development method and another that uses a second-generation one. We identified 27 coordination mechanisms in the first phase, and 14 coordination mechanisms in the second. Based on an analysis of coordination strategies and mechanisms, we develop five propositions on how the transition from a first- to a second-generation method impacts coordination. These propositions have implications for theory and practice.publishedVersio

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