Better Software - November 2008 - (Page 23) T he agile software development movement has made huge improvements in reliability when delivering software, increasing return on investment, and reducing the risk of building software. However, in a world of iPhones and Google apps, this may no longer be enough. losophy. User-based research provides a mechanism against which design decisions can be validated and tested. Evidence-based decisions mean that guess work is minimized. What to build becomes much less of a matter for debate. More importantly, by keeping a product’s end-users at the heart of its design and development process, the end result is far more likely to be useful, usable, and meaningful. The era of feature-centric development is coming to an end. Consumers are beginning to realize that more features do not always mean a better product. In the current maturing marketplace, quality of experience is far more likely to be a product differentiator than number of features—think iPhone vs. Nokia or Wii vs. PS3. UCD provides a way to engineer these quality experiences. As such, it empowers development teams to create products and solutions that are competitive in today’s discerning market. By embracing a UCD philosophy, one could argue (as Peter Merholz does in “Experience Is the Product” [1]) that we should not just create products and services—we should aspire to build better overall experiences where the value (both quantitative and qualitative) to all concerned is obvious. People are beginning to expect more from software. They expect it to work—not work in the sense that the software won’t crash every half an hour, but work intuitively and hassle free, as if it were built just for them. As users become more computer savvy, they have a better understanding of how they expect programs to behave. More often than not, users know what they want to achieve. Any software that hinders them from efficiently achieving their goals will quickly be replaced. This is particularly true where users can exercise their freedom of choice between a number of alternatives, such as with Internet-based applications where a viable alternative is only a Websearch away. If you are building this kind of software, you need to tune in to your users quickly. There is no doubt that to continue to provide value for our customers, we must continue to apply the principles of the agile development philosophy. But, in order for our software to be truly successful in the eyes of its biggest critics, we must endeavor to adopt a more user-centered approach. What Is User-Centered Design? User-centered design (UCD) can be applied to the design of anything that has a user—from mobile phones to kitchens. But when integrating UCD with agile practices, we are only concerned with the arena of software development. With agile development, the primary measure of progress must be related to working software. Once you adopt a user-centered philosophy, this is no longer the whole story. Unlike agile, UCD is not focused on the customer—it is centered on the end-user. Furthermore, from a UCD standpoint, software is incidental; what is important is that end-users can easily and efficiently achieve their goals—with or without software. What Is Agile Software Development? Agile software development is a philosophy that provides a framework defined by a set of values and principles that attempt to focus software developers on delivering the most value possible to their customers. Why Do We Need Agile Software Development? Building software is a tricky business. There are a number of factors that contribute to this complexity: • Writing software is technically complex and mentally challenging. • People write software, and people do not perform in a consistent manner. Why Do We Need User-Centered Design? There are a number of benefits that arise when advocating a user-centered phi- www.StickyMinds.com NOVEMBER 2008 BETTER SOFTWARE 23 http://www.StickyMinds.com
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