Agile And UX Can They Be Married

Kaushik Ghosh http://experienceisking.com [kaushik.t.ghosh@gmail.com] Agile & UX: Can they be married?

UX process as a Plug-in to Water fall Model

What are the shortcomings
Loss of communication
Often process data or user input does not get translated into the build
Large chunky PRDs are rarely followed, defeating purpose of detailed documentation
Loss of coordination
Design inputs are so far ahead of development that the co-ordination is lost
Often the decision does not flow from product management to Development, rather local sporadic iterations within individual teams lead to fragmented versions
Time & effort management issues
Bugs and other testing issues take up too much time before the next cycle begins
Target for a stable build always gets postponed
No effective allocation of time for scheduling User Testing for the current release
UAT bench is always under too much pressure to handle issues at hand and starting on new components
Change requests are difficult to accommodate

Comparison of Agile and UXD
Agile proponents promote
Short development cycles (Internet applications)
More active customer involvement
Smaller ‘feature set’ driven development
concurrent and modular Analysis, Observation, Development, Testing
More manageability and traceability
Agile methods are considered
Lightweight
People-based rather than Plan-based
UXD practitioners promote
Strong focus on the user & work flow
Constant iteration with feedback on design
Progression from High level to detail level
Consideration of experience from a holistic approach
UXD methods are considered
Precursor to the development process
Goal and activity oriented
Divergent: [breaks down the process into small components] Convergent: [integrates small components into one unified experience]

Benefits of the marriage
Smaller ‘feature set’ driven development
Large components will be broken down early to manageable sizes
Analysis, Observation, Development, Testing will be concurrent and modular
More manageability and traceability
Pending issues will not pile up as ‘to be done’, rather they will be scoped in the subsequent quick cycles
Close interaction between the team members ensure immediate attention to issues & concerns
Monitoring progress will be based on the Sprints rather than man-weeks or man-months

Concerns about the marriage
The cycles in Agile process tend to get smaller and hence there may be logistical issues for User Task Analysis which are usually done for a combination of feature sets
Testing on the current build will need to be accommodated within the subsequent cycle
Managing roadmap and prioritization needs to start well in advance
Management mandates and their impacts would have to be accommodated in the cycles
Technical platforms, tools and frameworks will have to be taken care of before the process is launched

What is then the ‘Key’?
Integrate UX as a part of the Agile cycles
User stories are developed straight from personas and scenario diagrams, which will be iterated in the following sprints
But it is not wise to use them if one did not have access to users and proxy users in later sprints as they do require to be fleshed out in more detail during the development sprints
During ‘sprint 0’ the user stories are usually quite high level and can be broken down to the required level of detail during the development sprints. A story will take the form of [- As a <user type> I want <some feature> So that <reason for the feature>.. Index cards can be used and the user (or user advocate / proxy user) is usually encouraged to write the stories themselves under facilitation
Change Requests are taken up in parallel with the current sprint form the earlier ones
The UXD team members should act as user representatives armed with the persona and actual feedback findings
Simplicity: the art of maximizing the amount of work not done (approaching the Δ) is essential
The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams

Proposed Agile UX Process W: Week # UAT: User Acceptance Test PRD: Product Requirement Definition SCRUM: Smallest unit in Agile

Proposed Agile UX Process Timeline

Agile And UX Can They Be Married

by kghosh71 on Feb 21, 2008

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Agile And UX Can They Be Married — Presentation Transcript