Agile Methods and User-Centered Design – Recent Work

Overview (In Case I Get Lost)

Intro to agile Problems Intro to User Centered Design Where is it? A question of design Can they be combined? Various attempts Summary

What is Agile

4 values 12 principles Existing types, and custom builds Incremental development, iterations, flexibility Communication Emerging development (YAGNI), no (BDUF) or

framework development Emphasis on testing Generalists Project vision??? About code and development (inward focus) Tacit knowledge sharing

Misconceptions

Agility isn’t about speed Less of a process and more of a set

of heuristics

Problems

Agile might not scale Inward focused (Code

Centric) Separating design

from engineering The customer is the

expert User stories written by

customers, not users

Thinking Like an Engineer

Draw a table named person. The table should have 4 columns named:

1. NAME2. AGE3. HEIGHT4. WEIGHT

Answer

UCD from IBMhttp://www-306.ibm.com/ibm/easy/eou_ext.nsf/publish/2

Norman and Draper 1986 User-Centered Design is a method for

designing ease of use into the total user experience with products. It enables organizations to consistently develop engaging products that are easy to buy, easy to set up, easy to learn, easy to use, and easy to upgrade. It calls for a multidisciplinary team to design everything the user sees and touches and to gather user input and feedback during each stage of the development process.

IBM Messages for Promoting UCD

Is your technology showing? Nobody buys ease of use, but nobody

buys products without it either Ease of use may be invisible, but its

absence sure isn’t Want to make the most of the e-

business opportunity? Do you know who your users are? Engineering the killer app isn’t exactly

child’s play. But using it better be (difficult to use systems fail)

Others?

GUIDE BRIDGE OVID

Where is it ?

Design for Developers

Consistent interface

Clear vision for product

Reasonable expectations of technology

Others?

Design for Users

Gulfs of understanding

Consistency Simplicity Memory issues Status indicators HCI and design

http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~tamj/481/

Can we Combine Them?

User input early in the process (human-centric)

Prototyping Evolutionary

design Iterations Light

documentation Rates of change

Can we Combine Them?Boem and Turner

6 Observations Neither agile nor plan-driven

methods provide a silver bullet Agile and plan driven have a

home ground Future trends are toward

hybrids Balanced methods emerging Better to build up than to tailor

down. Methods are important, but

silver bullets are more likely to be found dealing with people, values, communications and expectations management

User Centered Design (Light)?

Usage Centered Design http://www.foruse.com/ Constantine and Lockwood

Discount Usability Engineering, Jakob Nielson, www.useit.com

Alan Coopers Interaction Design ??? Rapid Contextual Design

http://www.incent.com/cd/cdhow.html Code Science

http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2002/10/manzo.html Jeff Patton incorporating Usage Centered Design into an

agile software development environment.

Usage Centered Design

Model driven approach Role model Task model Content model

Essential model

UCD Model Driven Approach

Use Case VS Task Case

Key Differences Between UCD and UCD

Discount Usability Engineering

Method for evaluation interfaces Scenarios Simplified thinking aloud Heuristic evaluation Validating discount usability

engineering

Contextual Design

Rapid Contextual Design (Defining the New Process)

1. Set focus2. Do contextual inquiries3. Build an affinity4. Introduce the larger team to customer roles and data5. The full team…6. Build user stories7. Run a release planning process8. Prioritize and eliminate9. Design detailed user interfaces10. Test UIs11. Provide the user stories to development12. During iteration 1, UI team works on iteration 213. Iterate as with agile methods, keeping the UI team 1

iteration ahead of development.

Beyer, Holtzblatt (8)

Code Science®

Based on XP

+ Business process analysis + Componentized architecture + Automated contract and regression testing + Story actors + Wall Gantts + Automatic document generation - 40 hour work week - Metaphor

Code Science is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Adding UCD to Agile (Patton)

Product/Project

IncrementalRelease

Evaluate

Iteration

Feature/Story

Design

Develop

Evaluate

Test

Evaluate

Feature List

Plan

Feature List

Plan

Feature List Plan

UCD Techniques Are Threaded Into An Agile Development Cycle

Product/Project

IncrementalRelease

Evaluate

Iteration

Feature/Story

Design

Develop

Evaluate

Test

Evaluate

Feature List

Plan

Feature List

Plan

Feature List Plan

Collaborative Requirements Worksession:•Role modeling, task modeling, context modeling, span planning

Reconcile Roles & Goals With Tasks & Features

Role Information Informs Priority

Context Modeling

Storyboarding

Wireframe UI

Use Case Writing

Scenario Writing

UI Prototyping

Contextual Observation

Usability Testing

Role-centric acceptance testing

Role and Task information determine bug criticality

Role and Task information indicate scope cutting opportunities

Questionnaires

Contextual AnalysisUser Interviews Role Modeling

Personas

Task Modeling Story Writing

Summary

Integrating User-Centered Design into agile methods attempts to solve the perceived problem that current agile methodologies are not adequately addressing user interface design issues.

References

Agile Alliance, (2001) The Agile Manifesto, http://www.agilemanifesto.org/

Cooper, Alan. The inmates are running the Asylum, SAMS, 1999

Garrett, Jesse James. The elements of User Experience, New York: New Riders, 2003.

Constantine, Larry. Process Agility and Software Usability: Toward Lightweight Usage-Centered Design: #110 2002 http://www.foruse.com/articles/agiledesign.htm

Constantine, Larry. Usage-Centered Engineering for Web Applications: #117 2002 http://www.foruse.com/articles/webapplications.htm

Boehm, Barry and Turner, Richard. Observations on Balancing Discipline and Agility: http://www.agiledevelopmentconference.com/2003/files/P4Paper.pdf.

Brooks, Frederick. The Mythical Man-Month: Addison Wesley Longman Inc. 1995.

Patton, Jeff. Improving on Agility: Adding Usage-Centered Design to a Typical Agile Software Development Environment: http://www.abstractics.com/papers/AddingU-CDToAgileDevelopment.pdf

References Continued

Cockburn, Alistair. Crystal Clear, Addison-Wesley, 2004.

Norman, Donald. The Design of Everyday Things, Doubleday/Currency, 1988.

Manzo, John, AgileTek L.L.C. Odyssey and Other Code Science Success Stories, http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2002/10/manzo.html

Holtzblatt, Karen / Beyer, Hugh / Baker, Lisa. An Agile User-Centered Method: Rapid Contextual Design, http://www.incent.com/

Nielsen, Jakob. Guerrilla HCI: Using Discount Usability Engineering to Penetrate the Intimidation Barrier. 1994. http://www.useit.com/papers/guerrilla_hci.html

Patton, Jeff. Improving on Agility: Adding Usage-Centered Design to a Typical Agile Software Development Environment. 2003. http://www.abstractics.com/papers/AddingU-CDToAgileDevelopment.pdf