Hi, Agile development offers new and interesting perspectives for interaction designers and usability specialists(and great benefits : something to test about every 4 weeks, continuous user feedback, focus on quality and simplicity, lightweight but accurate format of "user stories", ...). But they also require that we adapt the way we (interaction designers and usability specialists) intervene, our tools and techniques, in order to be more efficient and more reactive in such specific environment(short iterations; incremental development, high velocity ...).
I think interaction designers have first to fully and clearly understand the most important agile methods (SCRUM, XP) and the principles / values of the agile Manifesto. This is a good and mandatory starting point ! We also have to work within the team in the same work environment, and always have to be ready with our stuff the D day (timeboxing, an agile essential principle, is sometimes hard to respect). The feedback we provide to the team must be quick, efficient and usable. In terms of deliverables and studies, we should also produce only what is "just enough" and during the first iterations leave the the "Big design Up Front" philosophy. Studies must be short (to take place in the very first iterations) or accomplished before the sprint 0 (off project). Usability testing sessions must be more reactive, more accurate: the scope shorter, well defined and evolutive (iterations afer iterations in terms of participants profile, testing format, testing content and scenarios ...). Agile teams need us; they start to understand their weak points. Some of our tools and techniques, like personas, prototyping, requirements and design workshops facilitation, usability testing ... are so useful for them and they know it. For people ineresting and ready to read "french", I wrote on my blog an article called "Manifeste pour une ergonomie Agile" (An Agile Usability Manifesto) where I described our new challenges and the key points of our interventions in Scrum, Xp or Up contexts. The link: http://www.qualitystreet.fr/?2007/09/30/61-manifeste-pour-une-ergonomie-agile Regards, Jean Claude Grosjean Jc-Qualitystreet www.qualitystreet.fr 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 ________________________________________________________________ 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
