Usability testing in the agile environment: an overview

Elyse Sanchez, Wednesday, May 16, 2007 @ 9:15 am

The growing partnership between user-centered design practices and the array of agile methodologies faces an impasse when it comes to usability testing. In a traditional waterfall approach, a formal usability assessment generally occurs close to release and is structured--and often perceived by clients--as a culminating Big Event. Consequently, the attempt to insert traditional usability testing events into the iterative agile process is viewed by developers as antithetical to their process.

Several interesting articles have been written that explore this topic. Uzanto's Jonathan Boutelle takes the novel approach that usability testing should be taken out of the hands of specialists, whom he feels filters the user insights and often fails to communicate them to the design team. His strategy is to solicit "a constant drip drip drip of insights" by recruiting a small number of participants from Craigslist and having them assess the system remotely. This, he feels, allows the developers to experience the insights first hand.

An essay in Dr. Dobb's Portal asserts the need for user testing in the agile envionment and supports the need for UXD and agile developers to find a middle ground through mutual understanding of roles and responsibilities.

Michael Andrews has a gently humorous blog entry, "agile usability by committee," in which he criticizes the agile practitioners for their reluctance to involve real users in the process, instead inviting a "user surrogate" or "customer representative" into the mix. He further explores the issue in "user testing and agile methods."

user experience design

Comments

• Leave a comment
• Comment feed for this post
• TrackBack URL

None so far.

Leave a comment