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
