The Usability Expert’s Fear of Agility: An Empirical Study of Global Trends and Emerging Practices

Lene Nielsen, Sabine Madsen

    Research output: Conference Article in Proceeding or Book/Report chapterArticle in proceedingsResearchpeer-review

    Abstract

    This paper contributes to the HCI literature on usability practice with insights about the empirical challenges and global emerging practices caused by the advent of agile software development (ASD). In the paper we report from a worldwide study involving 12 usability professionals from 12 different countries. The findings show that the usability professionals share a forced development and innovation in their practice that stem from their clients’ adoption and use of ASD methods. The ASD methods challenge the way usability testing is performed, the abilities of the usability expert, the usability deliverables, and the experts’ assumptions about the importance of validity.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationNordiCHI '12 Proceedings of the 7th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Making Sense Through Design
    Number of pages4
    PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
    Publication date17 Oct 2012
    Pages261-264
    ISBN (Print)978-1-4503-1482-4
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 17 Oct 2012
    Event7th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction - NordiCHI 2012: Making sense through design - Copenhagen, Denmark
    Duration: 14 Oct 201217 Oct 2012
    http://www.nordichi2012.org/

    Conference

    Conference7th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction - NordiCHI 2012
    Country/TerritoryDenmark
    CityCopenhagen
    Period14/10/201217/10/2012
    Internet address

    Keywords

    • Usability testing
    • practice study
    • agile methods
    • usability professionals
    • global trends

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