Software Development Methodologies, Agile Development and Usability Engineering

This paper examines the relationship between the practices of agile software development and usability engineering, and examines how these practices may be integrated within a single methodology. As agile methods have become increasingly popular, they have begun to replace structured approaches to software engineering. Usability engineering has historically tended to follow a development approach that is similar to traditional software engineering, rendering it apparently incompatible with agile methods. The focus of this paper is an analysis of the relationship between agile practices, on the one hand, and current practices of usability engineering on the other. We provide an experience report from an organisation where usability engineering has been integrated into an agile software development method. From this context we identify areas of compatibility and also areas of conflict, and suggest some strategies for agile development teams to incorporate key practices from usability engineering, while at the same time suggesting that usability engineers should embrace relevant agile techniques.