Begoña Losada

A guide to agile development of interactive software with a User Objectives-driven methodology

This paper presents the InterMod methodology. By combining the widely accepted Agile Methods, Model-Driven Developments and User-Centred Design it allows us to develop high-quality interactive applications. As a main characteristic, it plans and organises the software project as a series of iterations that are guided by the User Objectives in an agile and user-centred manner. At each iteration, the software development work can be distributed to different teams according to some developmental and integration activities. Each activity is driven by models that are validated by a multidisciplinary team composed of developers and users. The requirements are incrementally collected and formalised by means of models based on user-centred design. Besides, the Semantically Enriched Human-Computer Interaction model is proposed to speed up project validation. This model enriches a human-computer interaction model with some visual characteristics and the application semantic. Thus, the enriched model provides enough information to generate prototypes so users and developers can easily validate this model. Diagram project is a real case study that is used to illustrate the application of the InterMod methodology through the whole paper.

The InterMod Methodology: An Interface Engineering Process Linked with Software Engineering Stages

InterMod is an interactive application design methodology which proposes using user-centred models to define requirements, describe human-computer dialogue, and evaluate prototypes. In addition, it promotes the early integration of interface models with system functionality. Based on Intermediate Description Design (IDD), which retrieves the formal description of models, InterMod makes it possible to quickly produce incremental prototypes and automatically adapt the design according to the modifications prompted by the evaluations.

Efficient Building of Interactive Applications Guided by Requirements Models

The analysis of functional and non-functional requirements of an interactive application not only encompasses the descriptive aspects of its functionality and the user and system restrictions, it must also satisfy user needs, such as usability, along with system needs, such as reliability. InterMod is an interactive application-design methodology with agile characteristics which proposes the use of incremental models to define requirements, configure presentation and develop functionality. This poster is focused on the requirements of the InterMod methodology for the efficient construction of interactive applications. These models include user, system, task and dialog models. An example created with a tool that follows these principles and illustrates our approach to the dialog model is presented.

An integrated approach to develop interactive software

In this poster we present InterMod, an approach that combines Agile Methods, Model-Driven Developments and User-Centered Design, which are widely accepted in the development of interactive software. The planning and project organizing are based on User Objectives (user desires). The project is organised as a series of iterations and the work is distributed in different workgroups according to some developmental and integration activities. The requirements are incrementally collected and validated with models based on user-centered design. To speed up this validation, we put forward the SE-HCI model, which enriches a human-computer interaction model with the semantics of the application and some basic characteristics of an abstract prototype.

Field vs. Laboratory Usability Evaluations: a Study on a Context Dependent Mobile Application Developed with an Agile Methodology

How usability assessment of mobile interactive applications should be conducted in the frame of agile methodologies is an open question. On the one hand, usability evaluation consumes time and resources, which can make agile methodologies lose their agile essence. On the other hand, there is a considerable debate about whether user interactions with mobile systems should be investigated in the field or in more traditional laboratory environments. This work compares the results of a field study conducted in an interactive context-dependent mobile application with performed laboratory studies. This study has allowed identifying different interaction patterns and contextual factors not likely to be simulated in laboratory environment. Integrating field evaluations in agile methodologies is consistent with the objective of improving product quality through incremental assessments.

Flexible Requirement Development through User Objectives in an Agile-UCD Hybrid Approach

Agile and User-Centered Design (UCD) integration allows the advantages of both approaches to be taken in a hybrid method. The requirements will evolve and gradually adapt to the needs of users and customers, and UCD techniques will improve usability and User eXperience (UX) of the developed software. However, there has been much discussion about the challenges of this integration, because of the differing philosophies. User stories and use cases are the typical artifacts for specifying requirements in agile methodologies. On the other hand, prototypes, Persona, scenarios, task analysis and usability testing are UCD techniques, frequently employed in Requirements Engineering. Numerous authors have studied the best way for these techniques and artifacts to be compatible in hybrid methods. However, the different approaches of Agile and UCD make it difficult to jointly apply and manage an agile-UCD project. This article proposes User Objectives for the collection and development of requirements in an agile and user-centered project. The UOs collect the functional and non-functional requirements of the users wishes. Completing a UO implies the orderly realization of three activities: Specification of Requirements, Presentation and Functionality. This enables, the flexible planning of an order in which to carry out activities, according to agile and UCD criteria. Moreover, the UOs are organized in different categories according to both their development and their relationship with the user. The UOs diagrams enable both the progress of the project to be visualized, thereby facilitating the modularization, prioritization and planning; and also the monitoring of the UOs evaluated with UCD techniques, as well as those that still need to be evaluated.

Integrating Field Studies in Agile Development to Evaluate Usability on Context Dependant Mobile Applications

Agile development is a current trend in Software Engineering which is encouraged by the special needs of interactive systems that require incorporating usability engineering in their development processes. In this regard, how usability assessment of mobile interactive applications should be conducted in the frame of agile methodologies is an open question. On the one hand, usability evaluation consumes time and resources, which can make agile methodologies lose their agile essence. On the other hand, there is a considerable debate about whether user interactions with mobile systems should be investigated in the field or in more traditional laboratory environments. This paper presents the results of a field study conducted in an interactive context-dependant mobile application. This study allowed detecting different interaction patterns and contextual factors that are difficult or impossible to simulate in laboratory. The way and timing in which evaluations were performed were carefully considered to optimize the cost in time and resources. The integration of field evaluations in agile processes, as the one here presented, is consistent with the objective of improving product quality through incremental assessments.