Anticipating user eXperience with a desired product: The AUX framework

Positive user experience (UX) has become a key factor in designing interactive products. It acts as a differentiator which can determine a product’s success on the mature market. However, current UX frameworks and methods do not fully support the early stages of product design and development. During these phases, assessment of UX is challenging as no actual user-product interaction can be tested. This qualitative study investigated anticipated user experience (AUX) to address this problem. Using the co-discovery method, participants were asked to imagine a desired product, anticipate experiences with it, and discuss their views with another participant. Fourteen sub-categories emerged from the data, and relationships among them were defined through co-occurrence analysis. These data formed the basis of the AUX framework which consists of two networks which elucidate 1) how users imagine a desired product and 2) how they anticipate positive experiences with that product. Through this AUX framework, important factors in the process of imagining future products and experiences were learnt, including the way in which these factors interrelate. Focusing on and exploring each component of the two networks in the framework will allow designers to obtain a deeper understanding of the required pragmatic and hedonic qualities of product, intended uses of product, user characteristics, potential contexts of experience, and anticipated emotions embedded within the experience. This understanding, in turn, will help designers to better foresee users’ underlying needs and to focus on the most important aspects of their positive experience. Therefore, the use of the AUX framework in the early stages of product development will contribute to the design for pleasurable UX

General characteristics of anticipated user experience (AUX) with interactive products

Providing a positive user experience (UX) has become the key differentiator for products to win a competition in mature markets. To ensure that a product will support enjoyable experiences for its users, assessment of UX should be conducted early during the design and development process. However, most UX frameworks and evaluation techniques focus on understanding and assessing user’s experience with functional prototypes or existing products. This situation delays UX assessment until the late phases of product development which may result in costly design modifications and less desirable products. A qualitative study was conducted to investigate anticipated user experience (AUX) to address this issue. Twenty pairs of participants were asked to imagine an interactive product, draw their product concept, and anticipate their interactions and experiences with it. The data was analyzed to identify general characteristics of AUX. We found that while positive AUX was mostly related to an imagined/desired product, negative AUX was mainly associated with existing products. It was evident that the pragmatic quality of product was fundamental, and significantly influenced user’s anticipated experiences. Furthermore, the hedonic quality of product received more focus in positive than negative AUX. The results also showed that context, user profile, experiential knowledge, and anticipated emotion could be reflected in AUX. The understanding of AUX will help product designers to better foresee the users’ underlying needs and to focus on the most important aspects of their positive experiences, which in turn facilitates the designers to ensure pleasurable UX from the start of the design process

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

Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice: The Agile Research Network

We report an action research-oriented approach to investigating agile project management methods which aims to bridge the gap between academic research and agile practice. We have set up a research network of academics from two universities, through which we run focussed project-based research into agile methods. Organisations are invited to suggest an ‘agile challenge’ and we work closely with them to investigate how challenge affects them. Our approach is both academic and practical. We use appropriate research methods such as interviews, observation and discussion to clarify and explore the nature of the challenge. We then undertake a detailed literature review to identify practical approaches that may be appropriate for adoption, and report our findings. If the organisation introduces new practices or approaches as a result of our work, we conduct an academic evaluation. Alternatively, if we uncover an under-researched area, we propose undertaking some basic research. As befits the topic, we work iteratively and incrementally and produce regular outputs. In this paper we introduce our approach, overview research methods used in the agile research literature, describe our research model, outline a case study, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of our approach. We discuss the importance of producing outputs that are accessible to practitioners as well as researchers. Findings suggest that by investigating the challenges that organisations propose, we uncover problems that are of real relevance to the agile community and obtain rich insights into the facilitators and barriers that organisations face when using agile methods. Additionally, we find that practitioners are interested in research results as long as publications are relevant to their needs and are written accessibly. We are satisfied with the basic structure of our approach, but we anticipate that the method will evolve as we continue to work with collaborators

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

Introducing Agile Principles and Management to a Library Organization

Libraries are pressured to adapt to changing conditions due to user demands, behavior, emerging technologies and a need for cost-efficient solutions. Software companies have turned to agile development to stay competitive and to deliver working solutions in a short timeframe. Agile processes are built upon co-operation, iterative workflows and delivering working solutions with a high business value. Agile development and management in an agile organization constitutes a controlled framework of principles with a promise to ensure that the organization focuses on the right things and is able to adapt to new needs. The Library at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden introduced agile software development in 2011 as a part of the work with the institutional repository. Following the success of introducing Scrum to system developers the formation of cross-disciplinary teams for other projects involved librarians. One of the projects for a cross-disciplinary team was to develop a brand new website. Drawing upon the experience of Scrum and with a focus on User Experience design (UX) the team was able to define an agile methodology involving different competences at the library. As other projects formed and adopted the principles of Scrum and agile the methodology spread throughout the library organization as it was re-organized. Managing an agile oriented organization can be challenging. Senior management has been forced to work with allocating resources, input to prioritization, sprint planning and judging business value thus forcing a transparency to appear in the organization and exposing its operations. Chalmers Library is still exploring the possibilities and challenges of working with agile development and management. It is an iterative and evolving process, but the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks as the organization can learn and respond to change, re-prioritize how resources are allocated, avoid knowledge silos, build strong teams and identify uncertainties early. As of January 1st 2014 the library organization changed and introduced agile principles throughout all operations

Bridging the gap between research and agile practice: an evolutionary model

There is wide acceptance in the software engineering field that industry and research can gain significantly from each other and there have been several initiatives to encourage collaboration between the two. However there are some often-quoted challenges in this kind of collaboration. For example, that the timescales of research and practice are incompatible, that research is not seen as relevant for practice, and that research demands a different kind of rigour than practice supports. These are complex challenges that are not always easy to overcome. Since the beginning of 2013 we have been using an approach designed to address some of these challenges and to bridge the gap between research and practice, specifically in the agile software development arena. So far we have collaborated successfully with three partners and have investigated three practitioner-driven challenges with agile. The model of collaboration that we adopted has evolved with the lessons learned in the first two collaborations and been modified for the third. In this paper we introduce the collaboration model, discuss how it addresses the collaboration challenges between research and practice and how it has evolved, and describe the lessons learned from our experience

Towards a Critical Turn in Library UX

In the past decade, cataloguing and classification and information literacy have experienced a critical turn, acknowledging the political, economic, and social forces that shape complex information environments. Library user experience (UX) has yet to undergo such a transformation, however; instead, it continues to be seen as a toolkit of value-neutral approaches for evaluating and improving library services and spaces to enhance user satisfaction and engagement. Library UX draws upon ethnography but is also informed by the principles and values of usability and design. Little attention has been paid to the origins or epistemological underpinnings of UX as a construct, the ways these inform UX practice, and ultimately, how they impact what academic libraries are and what they do, however. With the exception of a 2016 article by Lanclos and Asher, the relationship between corporatism, UX, and the mission and values of academic libraries has yet to be acknowledged or examined. This paper seeks to address this gap. While a handful of library UX practitioners have started to promote a more thoughtful study of individuals\u27 activities and needs, in the main, library UX remains a theoretically weak practice, one that sets out to solve complex problems with practical “solutions.” The failure to interrogate UX as a construct and a practice necessarily forecloses the user-centered problems we address, the tools and strategies we use, and the solutions we propose. We contend that UX would benefit from a deeper engagement with user-centered theories emerging from Library and Information Science (LIS) and critical and feminist perspectives on practice, embodiment, and power or risk perpetuating oppressive, hegemonic ideas about the academic library as a white space and its users as able-bodied

Software as an art. The aesthetic influence in software development

This thesis uses literature and quantitative interviews to look closer at how aesthetics and software development is connected. The thesis springs of from Warren Sacks claim, in “The Software Arts”, that at the centre of computing is the liberal arts. In this book Sack only focused on language and programming something that this thesis found lacking. Since aesthetics is a large part of humanities and the liberal arts, it can therefore be argued that aesthetics is also a part of the centre of computing. Because of this this thesis is investigating not just at programming but software management and software design as well, to see where aesthetics can be seen and how it has affected software development. The thesis therefore gives definition and explanation to what aesthetics is in the three topics just mentioned, programming, software management and software design. Before using these definitions to create a fourth definition around the aesthetics of software development. The thesis is trying to show the aesthetic beauty of software development and argues that there are more to software development then coding and mathematics. It also takes a closer look at outside forces that has helped change what developers have found aesthetic through the last few decades. The method this thesis used allowed the arguments to build on scientific articles and check these up towards what developers in businesses thought about aesthetics. The findings were that the developers in the businesses showed a great interest in some aesthetic attributes, specifically working to create a good product for the user gave them positive feelings.Denne master oppgava bruker litteratur og intervjuer til å se nærmere på hvordan estetikk og system utvikling hengersammen og påvirker hverandre. Oppgava tar utgangspunkt i Warren Sack sin bok "The Software Arts". Sack argumentere i denne boka at de liberal arts er kjerna i databehandling. Måten Sack argumentere for dette er ved å se på historie og språk (programmering). Denne oppgava argumentere at de liberal arts er et for stort tema til å kunne argumentere imot og at man må se nærmere på hver enkel bit innad i det. Derfor omhandler denne oppgava estetikk i systemutvikling, systemhåndtering, programmering og programvare design. Målet er å finne ut hva de som jobber med dette tenker og føler for å kunne se hvordan de påvirker produktet som blir lagd. Oppgava gir også overblikk over hvordan dette har endret seg i tritt med samfunnet, fra et produktfokus mot et brukerfokus, på rundt 2000 tallet. Oppgava viser til at det finnes noe estetisk vakkert med systemutvikling og emnene funnet i det. Det blir også argumentert for at det er mer til systemutvikling enn programmering, noe som gjør at andre utdanninger som ikke er innenfor data har en plass i utviklingen av programvare. Metodene som oppgava brukte, gjorde at argumenter kunne begrunnes seg i forsker artikler med kommentarer ifra utviklere rundt hva de mente er estetisk med systemutvikling. Funnene som ble gjort viser at det er estetiske attributter med systemutvikling. Ett eksempel er utvikleres positive følelser rundt å lage et produkt som brukarene trenger og får nytte av.Mastergradsoppgave i digital kulturDIKULT350MAHF-DIKU