integrating agile software development and user-centered design

Prof. Cl. Müller-Birn, Human-Centered Computing, FU Berlin Workshop

„Usability in Forschungsinfrastrukturen in den digitalen Geisteswissenschaften“ Berlin, September 22-23, 2014

neonion | Collaborative Semantic Annotation Integrating Agile Software Development

with User-Centered Design



neonion | Collaborative semantic annotation Integrating Agile Software Development

with User-Centered Design

Annotation

Descriptor (body)

Context (target)

semantic tag



neonion | Collaborative semantic annotation Integrating Agile Software Development

with User-Centered Design semantic tag <foaf:Person>!

<foaf:name>Claudia Müller-Birn</foaf:name>! <foaf:mbox rdf:resource="mailto:[email protected]"/>! <foaf:homepage rdf:resource=http://www.clmb.de/>!</foaf:Person>!

Prof. Dr. Cl. Müller-Birn | Human-Centered Computing | Institute of Computer Science | FU Berlin | Sep 2014 4

neonion | collaborative semantic annotation

Make digital content understandable by humans and by machines Create various knowledge layers on top of a document by allowing scholars to collaboratively annotate texts Integrate seamlessly hyper reading with machine reading capabilities Explore new concepts for human-machine interaction in the area of annotation Create an adaptable user interface


neonion | history

neonion adopts concepts of loomp, a semantic content management system, created by members of the NBI group @ FU loomp allows users to enrich texts semantically by using a controlled vocabulary neonion is now developed in collaboration with scholars from Humanities from the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

Integrating Agile Software Development with User-Centered Design

neonion | Collaborative semantic annotation


Visual Design

User Researchgoals

scope

structure

skeleton

surface

Determine Functional

Specification

DetermineContent

Requirements

InteractionDesign

Information Architecture

Information Design

Navigation DesignInterface Design

software as functionality software as informationconcrete

abstract

Garrett, J.J. (2011) The elements of user experience.

Principles of good interaction design



Cooper et al. (2007) About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design

Software interfaces should be designed to help users build productive mental models of a system (Preece, 1994).


Norman's execution evaluation cycle

•  Very intuitive approach of interaction design

•  Goals do not specify particular actions

•  Goals and intentions do not have a one-to-one-relationship

•  Each intention involves a sequence of actions

•  Evaluate Results •  Perceive new state •  Interpret what we perceive •  Evaluate new state with goal

Norman, D.A. (2002): The Design of Everyday Things. Basic Books, pp. 45-53


User interface problems Problems can be described in terms of Gulf of execution – difference between user determined action formulation and the actions allowed by system Gulf of evaluation – difference between physical presentation of system state and user expectation These gulfs can be “bridged” in two ways a)  Users can change to suit the interface and designers can design “knowing the

user” b)  Users can change their interpretation of system responses and designers can

change output characteristics



Principles of good interaction design

The aim of a good design for a software is to minimize the gulfs of execution and evaluation. In order to do this the design should •  Help the user build the correct conceptual model of the system •  Provide memory aids to the user •  Make the right parts visible •  Provide good feedback •  Accommodate errors

We adapt principles of user-centered design to realize good interaction design.


How do we use user-centered design activities

in our own development practice?



Benefits of integrating agile development and UCD

Development effort is not wasted on programming features that eventually would turn out to be wrong Usability testing and evaluation are conducted throughout the entire project The concept of time-boxed sprints (aka iteration) helps developers to focus on features that are important to users and to test these features with a specific set of user tasks Timely feedback is always available and developers get a better understanding of existing user needs within the development project

More: Rannikko, P. (2011) User-Centered Design in Agile Software Development. Tampere.

Our process

How do we use User Centered Design in our own development practice?


Basic process in educational software projects Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 Iteration 4 Iteration n

vision/ objective analysis

data collection

inquiry

interviews

ideation

project start kick-off Final presentation

persona

Project Pitch brainstorming

Project pitch

Paper prototype

UI design

user research

usability testing

Paper prototype

UI design

user research

Usability testing

development/ test

development/ test

development/ test


Scrum activities

sprint (iteration) sprint planning meeting

sprint review

sprint retrospective

weekly status emails

t

0 2 weeks

Adapted scrum process in the neonion project

Our tools

How do we use user-centered design in our own development practice?


Defining the main user interactions

Based on user research a shared understanding of user interactions with the software are defined between the project owner and project lead


Jira scrum board


HCI guidelines


Usability inspection based on heuristics

Is based on an analytical evaluation process An existing software interface and the interaction concept is analyzed by a predefined set of heuristics Heuristics are rules and design guidelines for the design of user interfaces The aim of the analysis is to identify difficult or problematic areas in the recent interface design


Low fidelity mockups based on Balsamiq


Applied procedure by usability testing of software

Traditional approach Our approach

one-way mirrored pane

camera (face)

observers

test lead

camera (screen)

proband proband

test lead

laptop


Applied procedure by usability testing of paper prototypes


My lessons learned in this process …


Apply Discuss Learn Adapt

Be patient


http://www.neonion.org