UX Work in Software Start-Ups: Challenges from the Current State of Practice

AbstractSoftware start-ups develop innovative software products working with disruptive technologies in time pressure and market-driven environment. Recently, User eXperience (UX) has become a hot topic that interests software teams of start-ups. However, software and UX professionals have struggled to match UX practices into the development activities, partially because of the lack of resources in the start-ups. This paper investigates how software start-ups handle UX activities during software development and how relevant UX is to these companies' professionals. To achieve our aim, we surveyed 88 professionals who take part in software teams in star-ups, analyzing the responses using descriptive and statistical methods. Our results reveal that regardless of having or not a UX position in the start-up, UX practices are spread in different software development phases and not fitting into them. Results also show although professionals consider UX relevant and recognize important skills to perform UX activities, some obstacles hinder the effective use of UX in software start-ups. From the survey results, we identified a set of challenges to be overcome in consolidating the UX work in software start-ups. By diagnosing the UX state-of-practice in start-up scenarios and identifying such challenges, our work contributes to provides relevant insights to further academic and practical studies in this field

Cataloguing of learning objects using social tagging

Social tagging has been recognized as an importante solution to the description of resources available on the Web. In the context of e-learning it is presented as an auxiliary mechanism to the composition of learning object metadata. This article aims to present the results of a study on the state of the art of works related to social tagging and learning objects, promoting a discussion about the main elements related to the concepts

UX information in the daily work of an agile team: A distributed cognition analysis

The integration of agile software development and user experience (UX) design has been a topic of investigation for practitioners and researchers for many years, and agile teams have become increasingly aware of the importance of UX design. Most studies have focused so far on the integration of UX theories and methods with agile practices. The objective of this research is to investigate whether and how UX information is embedded in the daily work of an agile team. We conducted an ethnographic study of an agile team based in the UK. We performed a qualitative analysis using different data sources and three complementary analytical lenses: Distributed Cognition of Teamwork, Garrett’s set of UX elements and planes, and Hassenzahl’s content-oriented model of UX. This combination provided an understanding of the different types of UX information available to the agile team through artefacts and face-to-face meetings, how the information flowed within and around the agile team, and the type of engagement they have with UX information. The findings reveal that: (1) agile team members were consumers of UX information not producers; (2) the most common type of UX information found in the system related to how the user interacts with the product rather than to user goals or needs; (3) information focusing on the user perspective appears in verbal communication rather than being captured in artefacts; and, (4) the flow of UX information around the team is complex. In combination, these factors indicate a potential breakdown in the communication of UX information. We argue that these findings have relevance for other agile teams because the artefacts and methods used by this team are commonly used by other agile teams. To improve the situation, we suggest a number of recommendations to engage agile team members in UX work, and reduce the complexity of UX information flow

Uma análise do Twitter como ferramenta de apoio à aprendizagem

A Web 2.0 impulsionou um aumento significativo do uso de aplicações relacionadas às redes sociais. Nesse quesito, o Twitter tem se destacado por ser um meio eletrônico de colaboração, comunicação e troca de ideias entre usuários que possuem interesses em comum. Dentro do contexto de aprendizagem pode-se observar uma crescente adoção das redes sociais como recurso de apoio às aulas presenciais. Elas podem ser empregadas como extensões da sala de aula, provendo mecanismos para compartilhamento de ideias e discussão dos temas de estudo. Contudo, não há um consenso na literatura se essas ferramentas são, de fato, eficientemente utilizadas pelos usuários para esse fim. Sendo assim, este artigo apresenta um experimento realizado com alunos de graduação, onde o Twitter foi utilizado como ferramenta de apoio extra sala de aula. Os resultados empíricos obtidos no experimento apresentam o comportamento dos alunos diante da utilização do ambiente

Considering emotions and contextual factors in music recommendation: a systematic literature review

In recent years, several music recommendation systems have been developed with the aim of incorporating valuable information into the user’s modeling and recommendation process. The inclusion of emotions and contextual information in music recommendation applications is increasingly becoming a relevant aspect to improve the listening experience. Thus, the main aim of this systematic literature review (SLR) is investigating the music recommendation approaches that considers emotions and/or context (research question 1) as well as to identify the main gaps and challenges that still remain and need to be addressed by future research (research question 2). After an extensive research, 64 publications were identified to answer the research questions. The studies were analyzed and evaluated for relevance. The main approaches that consider emotions and context were identified. The results of the review indicate that most studies in the field that combine multiple approach related to emotions or context factors have improved the user’s hearing experience. The main contributions of this review are a set of aspects that we consider important to be addressed by the music recommendation systems, such as: user activity, satisfaction, feedback, cold-start problems, cognitive load, learning, personality, and user preference. In addition, we also present a broad discussion about the challenges, difficulties and limitations that exist in music recommendation systems that consider emotions and contextual factors

Learning Profile Identification Based on the Analysis of the User Context of Interaction

One of the e-learning environment goal is to attend the individual needs of students during the learning process. The adaptation of contents, activities and tools into different visualization or in a variety of content types is an important feature of this environment, bringing to the user the sensation that there are suitable workplaces to his profile in the same system. Nevertheless, it is important the investigation of student behaviour aspects, considering the context where the interaction happens, to achieve an efficient personalization process. The paper goal is to present an approach to identify the student learning profile analyzing the context of interaction. Besides this, the learning profile could be analyzed in different dimensions allows the system to deal with the different focus of the learning

Towards a hybrid approach for adapting web graphical user interfaces to heterogeneous devices using context

Ubiquitous Computing promises seamless access to a wide range of applications and Internet based services from anywhere, at anytime, and using any device. In this scenario, new challenges for the practice of software development arise: Applications and services must keep a coherent behavior, a proper appearance, and must adapt to a plenty of contextual usage requirements and hardware aspects. Especially, due to its interactive nature, the interface content of Web applications must adapt to a large diversity of devices and contexts. In order to overcome such obstacles, this work introduces an innovative methodology for content adaptation of Web 2.0 interfaces. The basis of our work is to combine static adaption - the implementation of static Web interfaces; and dynamic adaptation - the alteration, during execution time, of static interfaces so as for adapting to different contexts of use. In hybrid fashion, our methodology benefits from the advantages of both adaptation strategies - static and dynamic. In this line, we designed and implemented UbiCon, a framework over which we tested our concepts through a case study and through a development experiment. Our results show that the hybrid methodology over UbiCon leads to broader and more accessible interfaces, and to faster and less costly software development. We believe that the UbiCon hybrid methodology can foster more efficient and accurate interface engineering in the industry and in the academy.CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Level Personnel

13Th International Conference On Conservative Management Of Spinal Deformities And First Joint Meeting Of The International Research Society On Spinal Deformities And The Society On Scoliosis Orthopaedic And Rehabilitation Treatment – Sosort-Irssd 2016 Meeting

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