Agile Development and Interaction Design

Leisa Reichelt

Waterfall: bad; washing machine: good;
Waterfall process: gather data->analyse data->formulate solution->implement.
– even in a formal process, people will tend to move between problem and solution, theorising, implemting a POC, revisitng,
– cyclic, iterative process synchronises everyone’s progress from problem to solution and back again
-WM: iterative; rapid early releases; teams are multi-disciplinary; collaborative
-Example WM metholologies; agile; UCD (user centred design (iterative, personas & scenarios, contextual research, user testing))
– both have missing elements: Agile is weak on end-user involvement. UCD is very design-centric; doesn’t involve developers, doesn’t release early
– agile fails to deliver on 2 key points: It confuses the customer who’s paying, with the customer who’s using. The bill-payer is very privileged in an agile project, but the end-user doesn’t get much of a say
– A large percentage of customer requirements never actually get used
– There’s no substitute for design research ; going out and actually asking users what they do.
– doing useability research at the end is too late. research has to be ongoing from as early as possible
– Nielson: Pay attention to what users do, not what they say
– need to add a “cycle 0” into an agile project where ucd is performed, but also need design involvement in every subsequent cycle
– Agile UCD needs longer cycles: but not too long!
– Agile UCD happens within Agile cycles, but typically feeds into later cycles

Chris May : 08 Nov 2007 08:51 |  Tags: Web20Expoberlin |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem