Integrating User eXperience practices into software development processes: implications of the UX characteristics

Abstract

User eXperience (UX) is a key factor in the success of software systems. Many software companies face challenges in their work with UX. Existing research does not analyze UX practices and challenges in relation to other software quality characteristics or, in particular, in relation to usability. A better understanding of these challenges can help researchers and practitioners better address them in the future. In this empirical study, we have interviewed 17 practitioners with different backgrounds and occupations from eight software development companies. Their responses are coded, and analyzed with thematic analysis. We report eight themes of challenges that practitioners face in their work with UX. While some of these challenges partly overlap with those reported in existing literature about usability or other software quality characteristics, the participants of our study either view many of the challenges as unique to UX, or more severe in the case of UX. Although at a superficial level challenges of UX and other quality characteristics overlap, we differentiate these challenges at a deeper level through the five main characteristics of UX: subjective, holistic, dynamic, contextdependent and worthwhile. In particular, we identified that these characteristics have at least 20 implications (i.e. additional difficulties) for day-to-day work of practitioners. We found that 11 of these implications have been previously reported in literature. However, to the best of our knowledge, the remaining nine implications are unique to our study. These implications can explain why practitioners perceive the challenges to be more severe than for other quality characteristics. Most importantly, they can explain the industry's lopsided focus on the pragmatic aspect of UX. Our findings can be useful for researchers in identifying new and industry-relevant research areas and for practitioners to learn from empirically investigated challenges in UX work, and base their improvement efforts on such knowledge. Identifying and investigating the overlaps underlines the importance of these challenges, and can also help finding research areas not only for enhancing UX work but also software quality in general. It also makes it easier for practitioners to spot, better understand as well as find mitigation strategies for UX, through learning from past experiences and developments in the area of software quality.

Possibilities for interdisciplinary software engineering education using problem-based learning (Pbl) and its social impacts

“…Thus, according to Kashfi, Nilsson and Feldt: […] more recent research highlights that the users' overall judgment of software is not merely influenced by how they perceive achievement of their goals. The judgment is also influenced by how users perceive satisfaction of their personal needs such as 'being stimulated', 'gaining pleasure', or 'feeling connected to their loved ones (SASHFI;NILSSON;FELDT, 2016, p.3).…”

A Conceptual UX-Aware Model of Requirements

“…We identified at least one more issue that relates to the abstract and emergent nature of UX: practitioners still do not have enough support for refining UX requirements to more concrete design solutions and requirements (i.e. FRs and objective QRs) [7]. One of the few existing methods for a UX-aware requirements work is developed by Hassenzahl [19].…”

Construct-Inference-Process (CIP) Framework for UX Model Building and EvaluationOver Time

“…This is further compounded by the dynamic features of UX. UX is temporal and there is a complex association among the several experiential moments or episodes of experience (Kashfi et al, 2017). UX is also dynamic.…”