Agile user experience : integrating good user experience development practices into Agile within the South African context

Abstract

Agile software development has proliferated over the last two decades and become one of the dominant frameworks used by software development companies. Agile development methods and User Experience (UX) both strive towards providing software that meets the users’ needs. The purpose of this study is twofold; firstly, to study the current literature and approaches of integrating UX into Agile software development with the intention of combining it into good development practices for use by Agile and UX practitioners. Secondly, to investigate how UX is integrated into Agile in the South African context thus confirming if literature from studies conducted abroad apply within the South African context. A review of the literature confirms that there are a significant number of publications on Agile software development from a South African perspective (Joseph and Santana 2016; Chiyangwa and Mnkandla 2017; Sebega and Mnkandla 2017; Mudarikwa and Grace 2018). However, there are no publications that have explored UX integration within an Agile software environment. Recent research attempts, such as those by Coleman (2018) and Brosens (2018), are evidence of the growing interest in UX; however, these studies do not provide a higher level of abstraction on Agile UX integration practices. This research presents results of a qualitative study on how UX and Agile can be integrated. UX cannot be quantified or adequately explained by using variables or experiments. The grounded theory research method has been used. It is qualitative in nature and the theory consists of iterative data collection and analysis with an aim of producing a theory. The results of this study highlighted approaches for increasing user involvement in Agile and good development practices to integrate UX into Agile. It also highlighted issues and challenges experienced. This research offers insight for UX/Agile practitioners and adds academic value in the form of a generic framework for the integration of UX into Agile. The framework has been developed through the lens of the Design Thinking paradigm.