A Method to Integrate UCD Process into Agile Development Approach

WHAT IS THE PRESENTATION ABOUT?
Technological advancements and innovations in hardware, especially in software space, is causing business organizations to rethink their product/service design and development processes in order to move faster. Agile development approach has been adopted as an efficient business design and development process since 2009. However, these agile methodologies are primarily focused on integrating working software in short timescale within the product/service but not on product/service user experience and usability. It is well documented in literature that an User Centered Design (UCD) process places the user at the center of the product/service design and development thereby resulting in producing usable products that meet their needs and goals. Hence, it is logical to integrate the UCD process and the agile development approach for a holistic product design and development methodology. However, in practice, integrating UCD process by User Experience (UX) professionals is not straightforward but quite challenging. This presentation outlines a method of integrating the UCD process into the agile development process through a case study in the context of aviation domain. Specifically, the presentation describes the different UX tools from the UX Toolkit that enabled the successful integration and concludes with the benefits of the method.

OUR SPEAKERS:
Dr. Sasanka Prabhala drives user experience vision, strategy, and applies user experience methodologies including ethnographic research, interaction design, and usability analysis to bring new products and services to market. He is an expert on bridging the gap between the users and the technology and regularly speaks at conferences sharing consumer-centric insights. He is a recipient of the Affiliate Society Council of Dayton Outstanding Engineers & Scientists Award and a patent for consumer electronics innovation. He also co-edited a book titled “Transforming Ethnography: User Experience Methods and Practices”. He currently works at GE Aviation leading the research and design direction of customer facing application and services. Prior to this, he worked at Wright State University and Intel Corporation.

Tonya Chouinard has a natural curiosity for understanding human behavior and exploring ways to improve experiences. This curiosity led her to earn a M.S. in Human Factors Psychology from Wright State University. She led many high-profile international research projects at LexisNexis, and was also a UX researcher at Hobsons. She has been part of teams that have won SIIA CODiE Awards and LexisNexis CEO Innovation Awards. She currently works at GE Aviation leading research efforts that are driving enterprise level strategy and design for a major engineering platform.

OUR SPACE SPONSOR
Origami Made is a consultancy that can take a napkin idea and develop it into a world class application. Our roots go back to the early days of Ruby on Rails, and extends into newer technologies including Elixir and Phoenix, Vue.js and Swift.

WHAT TO EXPECT
We'll open the doors around 5:30
Network and chat 5:30 to 6:00
Brief announcements
Presentation from 6:00 to 7:00
More chatting until the space sponsor kicks us out
Some people may go for dinner/drinks after we're kicked out