Requirements engineering related usability techniques adopted in agile development processes

Over the last decade there has been a growing interest in the integration of agile software development process (ASDP) and user-centred design (UCD). However, there are no papers that study which usability techniques related to requirements engineering are being adopted in the ASDP, and there are no formalized proposals for their adoption. Objective: Identify which techniques related to requirements engineering activities are being adopted in the ASDP and determine how they are being adopted. Method: We have conducted a systematic mapping study (SMS) to retrieve the literature reporting the application of usability techniques in the ASDP. We analysed these techniques using a catalogue of techniques compiled by software engineering researchers. We then determined the manner in which the techniques that are being used in the ASDP were adopted. Results: The agile community is very much interested in adopting usability techniques. The most used techniques are Personas, contextual inquiry and prototyping. Conclusions: This research offers an overview of the adoption of usability techniques related to requirements engineering in ASDPs and reports how they are being adopted. We found that some of the techniques are being adapted for adoption.This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports FLEXOR and “Realizando Experimentos en la Industria del Software: Comprensión del Paso de Laboratorio a la Realidad” projects (TIN2014-52129-R and TIN2014-60490-P, respectively) and the eMadrid-CM “Investigación y Desarrollo de Tecnologías Educativas en la Comunidad de Madrid” project (S2013/ICE-2715

Integrating Usability into the Agile Development Process: A preliminary empirical study

Background: Interest in the integration of the agile software development process(ASDP) and user-centred design (UCD) has grown over the last decade. However, there are not many papers that study this issue holistically and uncover the current state of this integration. Aim: This study sets out to answer the following research question: What is the current state of integration between agile processes and usability? Method: We conduct a systematic mapping study (SMS). We analyze the articles and the results were cross checked by the authors, and any disagreements were discussed and resolved in meetings. Results: We retrieved a total of 161 Primary Studies. There are very few papers that study the literature holistically and report the current state of usability in the ASDP. Conclusions: We categorized according to four criteria: process, practice, team and technology integration. The largest group refers to process integration with a total of 76 Primary Studies