I've been considering the issue of Agile IxD for awhile now, and I recently had a really great project experience integrating my design process with an Agile XP team. Some quick takeaways:
* as you suggest, Jessica, defining the interaction design framework (or overall IA structure or whatever you want to call it) in sprint 0, before release planning happens in full, is essential. Doing so focuses the entire team on the big picture of the user experience and lets people agree on the right set of functionality during release planning. Knowing what product you're aiming towards allows features to be prioritized and chunked so that the development team can deliver a working system with real value at the end of each iteration. * spend the time up-front to document what you know about your target user(s) so that everyone on the team has a shared understanding; personas are a great way to humanize users and communicate about them in natural ways * even better, of course, is to spend the time up-front to research your users so that you truly can make user-centered decisions for their benefit! * a scenario-based approach to design integrates well with Agile's use of story cards, keeping the team speaking the language of users' needs and tying design decisions closely in with the implementation process * the IxD (UX, IA, whatever) person represents the "customer" throughout development; they should participate in release planning, iteration planning, stand-up meetings, and especially acceptance testing during the entire project. These are just a few quick points but I hope they help. :) Cheers, Liz ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Vice-President, IxDA / www.ixda.org CDO, Devise / www.devise.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35254 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
