Integrating Human-centered Design into Product Development Process

Tarve käytettäville tuotteille kasvaa jatkuvasti. Kansainvälistyminen asettaa haasteensa tuotesuunnittelulle. Työkäyttöön tarkoitettujen järjestelmien tehokkuusvaatimukset ovat nousseet. Samalla myös käyttäjäkokemukseen on alettu kiinnittää enemmän huomiota. Tässä työssä kehitettiin tapa sulauttaa käyttäjäkeskeinen kehitysprosessi yrityksen olemassa olevaan tuotekehitysprosessiin. Yrityksessä toteutettiin käytettävyyden kypsyysarviointi, haastatteluja sekä osallistuva havainnointijakso. Näiden menetelmien avulla saatujen tulosten sekä kirjallisuuslähteiden perusteella luotiin uusi tuotekehityksen prosessimalli, jota testattiin pilottiprojektissa. Projektin osallistujat vastasivat kyselyyn ja heitä haastateltiin. Prosessimallia kehitettiin pilottiprojektista saadun palautteen perusteella. Ehdotettu prosessi painottaa alkupään suunnittelua ja käyttäjän osallistuttamista tuotekehitykseen. Prosessimalli jakaa tuotekehitysprojektit kolmeen tasoon niiden käytettävyyskriittisyyden suhteen. Eri tasoilla suunnittelutyötä tehdään erilaisia käytettävyyttä parantavia menetelmiä hyödyntäen. Tässä diplomityössä ehdotettu prosessimalli on otettu käyttöön kohdeyrityksessä. Muutoksen pysyvyyttä tuetaan koulutuksin, tiedotuksin, ja varmistamalla johdon tuki. Prosessin noudattamista valvoo keskeinen käytettävyysryhmä, jonka vastuulla on tuotekehitysprojektien ulkopuolinen käytettävyystyö.The need for usable systems is growing constantly. Internationalization of products and companies brings new demands for usability. Efficiency and productivity are key issues in the business world. At the same time user experience has risen to a more important role. A way to integrate human-centered design into an existing product development process of an organization was developed in this master s thesis. A usability maturity assessment, participant observation and interviews were executed in this thesis. With the results obtained with these methods and the cognizance gained in the literature review, a process model for product development was created. The model was tested in a pilot project and it was developed further based on the feedback gained from a survey and interviews after the pilot project. The process emphasizes the early phase design and involvement of the actual users. The process model divides the product development projects into three categories according to the importance of usability. The usability work methods vary in each category. The process model created in this thesis has been implemented in the target organization. The change is being supported by training and communication. A central usability group is controlling the compliance with the process. All the usability work outside the development projects is part of the responsibility of the central usability group

Strategies for doing Agile in a non-Agile Environment

Background: Most companies practicing Agile are not fully Agile but instead they combine both Agile and traditional practices in their operations. It is not clear how these practices can be successfully used together in an organisation.Aims: We investigate practitioners' mitigation strategies related to the challenge of doing Agile in a non-Agile environment.Method: Strategies were collected during two studies, an online survey and an interactive workshop run at an Agile meetup and analysed thematically.Results: Strategies related to the wider organisation and not just software development. Two perspectives emerged from the data: an organisational and a change perspective. Five organisational themes were identified with Management and decision-making and Culture the two biggest themes. Nine change themes were identified, with Being open, Using specific approaches and Educating the biggest themes.Conclusions: Better understanding is needed of how Agile practitioners can accomplish bottom-up change in their organisation

Sustaining Agile Beyond Adoption

Agile approaches are adopted in industry to improve outcomes from software development, and are increasingly the subject of research studies. However, adoption is not the end of the story. Agile requires on-going change and commitment in order to become sustainable and embedded within teams and organisations. This study explores current perceptions of post-adoptive agility. We asked 50 practitioners ‘what does agile sustainability mean to you?’. Analysis of practitioner comments identified four themes: being completely agile, independent, focused on business value and need, and consistent across time. Post-adoptive agile is an under-researched area, there is inconsistent use of terminology, and there is a gap between practitioners’ and researchers’ perceptions about what is important for sustaining agile

High-resolution SNP array analysis of patients with developmental disorder and normal array CGH result (vol 13, 84, 2012)

Peer reviewe

High-resolution SNP array analysis of patients with developmental disorder and normal array CGH results

Erratum to: high-resolution SNP array analysis of patients with developmental disorder and normal array CGH result BMC Medical Genetics 2014, 15:124 10.1186/s12881-014-0124-3Peer reviewe

Integrating UX Work in Agile Enterprise Software Development

Agile development methodologies have become the norm in software development. Simultaneously, user experience (UX) has become an increasingly important factor in the success or failure of software systems. However, agile methodologies do not give guidance on how to conduct UX work. Companies encounter challenges in UX work despite the previous academic research activities in order to integrate UX work with agile development practices.This doctoral thesis investigates how to integrate UX work as part of agile development of enterprise software, where other factors such as business benefits often overrule end user needs. The thesis studies tasks and goals of which agile UX work consists of, challenges companies encounter while integrating UX work with agile development, and actions that support the integration. This thesis consists of nine publications and an introductory part. The research has been conducted in seven Finland-based international large- and middle-sized companies over the years 2011 to 2014. The research approach of the thesis is inductive, aiming at explaining and structuring the studied phenomena based on empirical findings. The research consists of three rounds of studies utilizing both qualitative and quantitive methods. The main data gathering methods include surveys and interviews. Most of the study participants were agile projects’ team members, but also end users and other roles significant to research and development activities in companies.The main contributions of this thesis address the research questions of challenging issues in the integration of agile development and UX, tasks and goals related to UX, and activities that support the integration. We present a framework called BoB (Best of Both Worlds) for integrating UX work in agile enterprise software development. While most of the previous models for agile UX concentrate on integrating the role of UX specialist responsible for the UX work, BoB approaches the integration via UX tasks and shared ownership of the cross-functional team including software developers and UX specialists.The results convey the conclusion that agile UX work should be collaborative effort with several contributing roles. BoB structures UX work via UX tasks unlike the previous models for agile UX work and partially merges upfront design work with development iterations

Are software developers just users of development tools? Assessing developer experience of a graphical user interface designer

Software developers use software products to design and develop new software products for others to use. Research has introduced a concept of developer experience inspired by the concept of user experience but appreciating also the special characteristics of software development context. It is unclear what the experiential components of developer experience are and how it can be measured. In this paper we address developer experience of Vaadin Designer, a graphical user interface designer tool in terms of user experience, intrinsic motivation, and flow state experience. We surveyed 18 developers using AttrakDiff, flow state scale, intrinsic motivation inventory and our own DEXI scale and compare those responses to developers’ overall user experience assessment using Mann-Whitney U test. We found significant differences in motivational and flow state factors between groups who assessed the overall user experience either bad or good. Based on our results we discuss the factors that construe developer experience

Märkälujahartsien, kuivalujahartsien ja prepolymeerien kuiva-ainepitoisuuksien määritys halogeenikosteusanalysaattorilla

Tämä opinnäytetyö tehtiin Ashland Industries Finland Oy:n Tampereen tehtaan laadunvalvontalaboratoriossa. Tavoitteena oli kehittää menetelmä märkälujahartsien, kuivalujahartsien ja prepolymeerien kuiva-aineprosentin määrittämiseen halogeenikosteusanalysaattorilla. Lisäksi tutkittiin kuinka näytteenkäsittely vaikuttaa prepolymeerien kuiva-aineprosentin määrittämiseen refraktometrillä. Märkälujahartsien ja kuivalujahartsien kuiva-ainepitoisuuden määritysmenetelmät halogeenikosteusanalysaattorilla todettiin toistettaviksi. Menetelmät poikkesivat t-testin mukaan vertailumenetelmänä käytettävästä uunimenetelmästä merkitsevästi. Menetelmän todettiin kuitenkin soveltuvan märkälujahartsien ja kuivalujahartsien kuivaainepitoisuuden määrittämiseen halogeenikosteusanalysaattorilla. Prepolymeerien määrittäminen halogeenikosteusanalysaattorilla ei onnistunut toivotusti, mutta kuivaainemääritysten tarkkuutta refraktometrillä pystytään parantamaan sekoittamalla näytettä ennen mittausta.This thesis was made at the Ashland Industries Finland Oy in the quality control laboratory in Tampere. The goal of this thesis was to develop a method for determination of total solids in wet strength resins, dry strength resins and prepolymers with halogen moisture analyzer. Handling of the prepolymer samples for determination of total solids with refractometer were also examined. Repeatability of determination of total solids in wet strength resins and dry strength resins with halogen moisture analyzer was found to be good. The methods differed significantly from the used reference methods according to the t-test. The methods were found to be suitable to determine total solids in wet strength resins and dry strength resins with halogen moisture analyzer. The determination of total solids in prepolymers did not work properly when determined with halogen moisture analyzer, but it was possible to improve the accuracy of the determination of total solids from prepolymers by stirring the sample before the measurement

Integrating UX Work in Agile Enterprise Software Development

Agile development methodologies have become the norm in software development. Simultaneously, user experience (UX) has become an increasingly important factor in the success or failure of software systems. However, agile methodologies do not give guidance on how to conduct UX work. Companies encounter challenges in UX work despite the previous academic research activities in order to integrate UX work with agile development practices.This doctoral thesis investigates how to integrate UX work as part of agile development of enterprise software, where other factors such as business benefits often overrule end user needs. The thesis studies tasks and goals of which agile UX work consists of, challenges companies encounter while integrating UX work with agile development, and actions that support the integration. This thesis consists of nine publications and an introductory part. The research has been conducted in seven Finland-based international large- and middle-sized companies over the years 2011 to 2014. The research approach of the thesis is inductive, aiming at explaining and structuring the studied phenomena based on empirical findings. The research consists of three rounds of studies utilizing both qualitative and quantitive methods. The main data gathering methods include surveys and interviews. Most of the study participants were agile projects’ team members, but also end users and other roles significant to research and development activities in companies.The main contributions of this thesis address the research questions of challenging issues in the integration of agile development and UX, tasks and goals related to UX, and activities that support the integration. We present a framework called BoB (Best of Both Worlds) for integrating UX work in agile enterprise software development. While most of the previous models for agile UX concentrate on integrating the role of UX specialist responsible for the UX work, BoB approaches the integration via UX tasks and shared ownership of the cross-functional team including software developers and UX specialists.The results convey the conclusion that agile UX work should be collaborative effort with several contributing roles. BoB structures UX work via UX tasks unlike the previous models for agile UX work and partially merges upfront design work with development iterations