Agile development: opportunity or fad?

ABSTRACT

The importance of integrating software engineering and HCI methods has been recognised for many years. Agile development is a new approach to software engineering that explicitly champions an active role for the customer. Indeed, eXtreme Programming (XP), one of the most popular agile development methods, strives to include a real user(s) in the team who is located 'on-site' with software developers.In this panel we will debate whether or not agile software development provides an opportunity to integrate HCI and software engineering concerns. The panel members represent a wide cross-section of experiences in this area and will consider how agile development can help improve the current situation, consider specific example scenarios provided by the audience, and, with the audience's help, will decide whether agile development is an opportunity not to be missed, or just another fad that will pull the two communities further apart.

REFERENCES

• 1: Jack J. Baroudi , Margrethe H. Olson , Blake Ives, An empirical study of the impact of user involvement on system usage and information satisfaction, Communications of the ACM, v.29 n.3, p.232-238, March 1986 [doi>10.1145/5666.5669]
• 2: Kent Beck, Extreme programming explained: embrace change, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 1999
• 3: Boehm , Richard Turner, Balancing Agility and Discipline: A Guide for the Perplexed, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 2003
• 4: Hansson, C. Dittrich, Y. & Randall, D. (2004) Agile Processes Enhancing User Participation for Small Providers of Off-the-Shelf Software, in Proceedings of XP2004, eds J. Eckstein & H. Baumeister, 175--183
• 5: Ian Sommerville , Gerald Kontonya , Gerald Kotonya, Requirements Engineering: Processes and Techniques, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 1998
• 6: Kujala, S. (2003) User involvement: a review of the benefits and challenges, Behaviour & Information Technology, 22(1) 1--16.
• 7: Nelson (2002) eXtreme Programming vs Interaction Design. An interview with Alan Cooper and Kent Beck, www.fawcette.com/interviews/beck_cooper.
• 8: Jenny Preece , Yvonne Rogers , Helen Sharp, Interaction Design, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 2002
• 9: Rittenbruch, M. McEwan, G. Ward, N. Mansfield, T. & Bertenstein, D. (2002) Extreme Participation - Moving extreme programming towards participatory design in Proceedings of PDC 02, pp 29 -- 41
• 10: Ahmed Seffah , Eduard Metzker, The obstacles and myths of usability and software engineering, Communications of the ACM, v.47 n.12, p.71-76, December 2004 [doi>10.1145/1035134.1035136]
• 11: Sharp, H.C., Robinson, H.M. and Segal, J.A. (2004) "eXtreme Programming and User-Centred Design: friend or foe?" in HCI2004 Design for Life, Vol 2.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.1 Requirements/Specifications
          Subjects: Elicitation methods (e.g., rapid prototyping, interviews, JAD)

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.1 Requirements/Specifications
          Subjects: Methodologies (e.g., object-oriented, structured)
      D.2.2 Design Tools and Techniques
          Subjects: User interfaces

General Terms:
Human Factors

Keywords:
agile development, process, user-centered design