User Experience & Agile

A proposed approach

Program

Product

Project

• Ongoing user testing

• Portfolio-wide field research

• User needs

• Product-based field research

• Personas

• Scenarios/stories

• User testing

Challenges

• Agile methodologies demand speed, in design as well as development

• UX tasks must not interrupt the workflow, but we still need quality products

• Agile does not inherently make space for user research or user testing

Solutions

• Run large user research and testing pieces in parallel to Agile project

• Test components during project lifecycle

• Implement ongoing user testing across all products, rather than project-based testing only

• Utilise Sprint Zero to incorporate user research into project planning

Resource & Business Implications

• Requires usability resources to be available outside the Scrum/Agile team

• Requires business owners to take users into account from beginning of product conceptualisation

User Research

• Conduct user research (eg, field research, focus groups) when business case is being developed

• Develop personas based on this research before project begins

• Use this research to feed into Sprint Zero of project

Sprint Zero

• Write stories based on personas• Minimal design up-front, but not no design• Information architecture must be designed

up-front, and may need to be tested using paper prototypes, depending on project

• Interaction design required up-front (eg, basic templates, understanding of behaviour)

Sprints

• Testing and design tasks to be done one sprint ahead of development

• Testing of small pieces of design/functionality as tasks are completed. Feed results back into the project so usability improvements can be made quickly.

• Testing of completed designs, where possible.

Post-build

• During UAT, or after launch, complete task-based testing of completed build.

• Agreement with team on how usability issues will be handled (eg, are usability issues bugs? How are they prioritised?)

Post-launch

• Regular testing of live site and continuous improvement

• Field studies where appropriate

• Data from testing to inform next project, or next stage of the project if it is ongoing