"I suggest you take a look at Scott Ambler's Agile Modeling site; this is a good intro< http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/initialArchitectureModeling.htm> to how initial modeling fits in. (Ambler is about the most authoritative you can get with agile, so if you want to gain an understanding of what agile "should" be, he's a good source.) You'll note that he includes UI design in this up front modeling (calls it UI flow models). That's where it seems interaction designers would do well to plug in to do their up front modeling."
Where does User Research, Abductive brainstorming (from Design Thinking); conceptual modeling and prototyping fit into his model? Does his methodology call for requirements up front? How can this method possibly create new innovations if it is essentially the same old requirements>design>develope> test process? My take is simple - and I do have baggage. I worked for a few years at a company and was afforded almost a year to do user research, personas, wireframes, flows - for a thick client application. Then I spent another 3 months prototyping ideas from brainstorming in MS Expressions Blend -- after all this was over - all of it was handed over to a development team that was adopting Agile. Sounds good? Kind of, I guess - we'll see what they produce since I left to work in the most truly agile of all environments - 3 guys working in a garage. My baggage? I have gone to 2 conferences and have has 3 all day workshops on Agile + UCD. My money would have been better spent on Beer. All were either conducted by either Agile centric software architects with little or no understanding or experience with real UCD - another was from a UCD guru who lectured for a day on the process - but had never actually been the UX Architect on an Agile project. If UCD is allowed upfront - then handed off to an Agile development team - it could work - I just have not seen/heard of one successful case study of the two integrated. ~ w. (the baggage guy) On Feb 12, 2008 3:16 PM, J. Ambrose Little <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi folks, > > Wow, quite the little hornet's nest this has stirred up. Here's my > (further) take on this question of agile w/ UX. > > First off, it seems to me that a lot of folks (devs included) have baggage > and multifarious connotations with the term "agile." I don't see a lot of > value in debating those. Nor do I think much more anecdotal evidence will > help--software projects (with good UX) can succeed or fail with any > process, > as has been noted. The > evidence<http://www.ambysoft.com/surveys/agileMarch2007.html>in > business software, at least, is that agile lends itself to greater > success. > > What I see here in terms of what is disliked about agile is this > perceived concept that agile means lack of coherent design. I shudder to > think of anyone ("engineer" or "designer") jumping headfirst into a > project > without any sort of coherent vision that has at least been fleshed out at > a > high level. I hope we can all agree that this is bad. > I suggest you take a look at Scott Ambler's Agile Modeling site; this is a > good intro< > http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/initialArchitectureModeling.htm> > to > how initial modeling fits in. (Ambler is about the most authoritative you > can get with agile, so if you want to gain an understanding of what agile > "should" be, he's a good source.) You'll note that he includes UI design > in > this up front modeling (calls it UI flow models). That's where it > seems interaction designers would do well to plug in to do their up front > modeling. Then as you go through the iterations, you flesh out and > refactor > your designs along with the engineers. > > For my part, I think a huge part of the success of a project depends upon > the actual usefulness of the thing being designed and built. You can make > a > product as usable, desirable, interactive, and rich as you want, but if in > the end it doesn't actually do what needs to be done, it doesn't matter. > The goal of agile is to tackle this important facet of UX--usefulness--in > a > more successful manner than "waterfall" has. > > Based on my experience and knowledge of the ways devs think, making the > case for UX is already an uphill battle with a lot of dev shops. If you, > as > the UX advocate, try to force a particular methodology down their throats, > you're only going to make your job harder. Instead of calcifying and > arguing about methodologies, as UX pros, I'd suggest you simply ensure > that > you make your needs clear to the biz and devs you'll be working with. Try > to figure out how to work your needs into the process they have in place > and > be flexible (adapt). > > --Ambrose > > J. Ambrose Little > UXG Lead & Codemunicator > infragistics.com > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > -- ~ will "No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it." Alan Cooper - "Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems" ------------------------------------------------------- will evans user experience architect [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------- ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
