User Experience in Agile Development Environments

The purpose of this project is to understand current practices of integrating user experience design activities in agile software development practices. In such practices it is challenging for interaction designers to conduct user research and create interface designs before actual implementation starts. Ensuring design consistency from the beginning is difficult given the low focus on requirements bootstrapping, i.e. there is little to no time for interaction designers to gain the necessary overview allowing design consistency across product increments.

The studies conducted through this project are considered pilots. They give us critical knowledge of how user experience activities can be well integrated within agile development environments. Case companies benefit by obtaining knowledge of how to overcome prevalent challenges. As a result, the partnering companies will experience more consistent UX designs across product increments, which in turn improve product quality.