Agile and User Experience (UX) Development

Two Essential Elements of the Modern World

Agile Development and User Experience (UX) Design are different in many ways, but in a certain manner, they are closely connected. For an organization to successfully apply Agile development, management must create an optimal way for UX and other stakeholders to collaborate openly and maintain constant dialogue throughout a project.

Another vital consideration is how organizations define UX roles and Agile roles, emphasizing four key principles for organizations to benefit from this Agile-UX cultural combination:

• Leadership must understand and actively support UX activities;
• UX professionals should demonstrate leadership and take the necessary time to discuss with other team members;
• Agile workflows must be flexible enough to meet the needs of UX staff;
• UX staff should be part of product teams, building respect and optimal relationships with developers.

To support UX activities, management must provide sufficient resources for research. A business analyst or solutions architect working closely with UX staff can help translate developer ideas.

When UX professionals help teams work according to client and user requirements, everyone can deliver correct outputs.

What is Agile Methodology?

If you are not yet familiar with this Agile-based software development term, certainly after reading our article, things will be much clearer, especially if you read the article about Agile vs Waterfall. Agile development represents a software development methodology that teams often use in projects. Self-organized and multifunctional teams frequently analyze circumstances and user needs to adopt projects.

Jim Highsmith, a software engineer, in his work ‘Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products,’ argues the following: “If your goal is to deliver a product that meets a known and unchanged specification, then try a repeatable process. However, if your goal is to deliver a valuable product to a customer within targeted limits, especially when change and deadlines are significant factors, Agile processes work better.”

Agile Methodology-Based Software Development – An Antidote Against Inflexibility

In the mid-1990s, many software domain professors became frustrated with the development processes they were using. Development methods already existed, but these developers needed something much more dynamic. Software was becoming increasingly sophisticated, allowing more freedom in shaping their projects.

Thus, they began to streamline a new approach to remain flexible and respond to new challenges in design, giving rise to the Agile method.

Authors who developed this new method called Agile stated that transparency and iteration are two essential characteristics. Clients must remain involved in projects and cooperate with the team.

Agile teams often work iteratively and collaboratively to produce correct deliveries. For the creation of software, whether it’s a mobile or web application, a process must be followed, as only then can we achieve a correct result. They also remain highly focused on achieving smaller objectives, which unfold between 1 and 4 weeks. During Scrum’s daily meetings, internal stakeholders take into account actions from the previous day, staying informed about client needs.