User Centred Design and Agile

Have just attended a joint British Computer Society and Scottish Usability Professionals Association (SUPA) meeting at Edinburgh University last week on the conflicts between a User Centered Design and an Agile software development process.

The central conflict appears to be that UCD involves learning everything there is to know about the user before starting development. While Agile emphasises teamwork, customer involvement and the frequent creation of small, working pieces of the total system.

User Centered Design is an approach to design that grounds the process in information about the people who will use the product. UCD processes on users through the planning, design and development of the product. It tends to require a more waterfall project management process and it can be difficult to fit into a typical short iteration Agile/Scrum process.

Usability (expert and user) testing forms a major part of the UCD process and in my experience recruitment of users fitting a specific user profile can be difficult and time consuming. Any potential project slippage during an iteration can be a problem to accommodate.

Any important usability issue identified in testing can also be problem when new user stories will need to be created, estimated and prioritised. The consensus at the meeting was that these issues will always occur regardless of what project management methodology is used. It was agreed that Agile provides an excellent framework to make discussion and management of project implications overt. Thus avoiding rushed periods of development and pressure on project teams to deliver against impossible deadlines.

This has got to be a good thing - more information on usability testing here.