Whose Experience Do We Care About? Analysis of the Fitness of Scrum and Kanban to User Experience

Abstract

Two project management approaches, Agile and Lean, have increasingly been adopted in recent years for software development. Meanwhile, in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI), user experience (UX) has become central in research and practice. The new hybrids between the two fields-Agile UX and Lean UX-were born a few years ago. As Agile, Lean, and UX have different principles and practices, one can query whether the couplings are well justified and whether Agile or Lean is more compatible with UX work. We have conducted a conceptual analysis and tended to conclude that Lean instantiated as Kanban fits UX work better than Agile instantiated as Scrum. To explore further our claim, we performed a secondary data analysis of 10 semistructured interviews with practitioners working with Scrum and Kanban in different sectors (Study 1). This study enabled us to gain insights into the applications of the two processes in real-life cases, their strengths and weaknesses, and factors influencing the practicality of implementing them. Both processes seem not favorable for UX work in practice. Among others, one intriguing observation is loose adherence to the related guidelines and principles. A query derived from the analyses of the interviews is that "customer," as compared with "user," has more frequently been referred to by our interviewees, irrespective of the process they adopted. We have then been motivated to investigate this issue, using a web-based survey with another batch of practitioners (N = 73) in the software industry (Study 2). Results of the survey indicate that the practitioners in general had a reasonable understanding of the concepts "user" and "customer," although a minority tended to treat them as synonyms. Limitations of the current studies and implications for future work are discussed.

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

“…To investigate strengths and weaknesses of Kanban and Scrum concerning UX work, Law et al [28] performed a conceptual analysis of these approaches, followed by interviews with 10 practitioners and 73 survey responses from software development practitioners. The authors conclude that practitioners find it very challenging to fully integrate UX work with these two approaches.…”

“…Secondly, there are studies that investigate UX practices in the context of agile projects (e.g. [10,27,28]). These studies often concern various aspects of UX work, but specifically investigate how the setup in one particular type of software project (agile) facilitates or inhibits the practices.…”

Theory, Practice and Policy: An Inquiry into the Uptake of HCI Practices in the Software Industry of a Developing Country

“…The content analysis technique has also been used in a recent study in the HCI community (Law & Larusdottir, 2015). The process described by Krippendorff (2003) is exemplified in Figure 1, which shows an overview of the process of conducting content analysis.…”

“…These findings are also similar to the findings of Wechsung et al (2008) and suggests that Nigerian software companies might not be involved in advanced UX works. Based on the ISO 9241-210 framework, usability is now subsumed by UX, and UX is subsumed by HCD (Law & Larusdottir, 2015). Thus, software development companies are expected to do more than just prioritizing pragmatic issues, which are defined in usability engineering.…”

Go with the Flow: Accelerated digital design in the age of Post-agility

“…models and sketches ( 2 Ferreira, 2012) enhance 'ceremonies' (Isomursu et al, 2012) by embodying team knowledge and project decisions. Such deep collaboration is also supported by growing number of digital tools (Law and Larusdottir, 2015).…”