[LRUG] Agile and User centred design

[James Adam]

On 30 Jan 2009, at 09:58, Beaton, Malcolm wrote:

> I have had experience with a consultancy where the user experience  
> team
> seem to have serious problems with agile full stop and they say a  
> great
> many thing like it stifles creativity etc.

While I was at my last job, it was quite difficult to get design to  
work in an agile way, both in terms of getting the creative-types to  
work that way, but also the business-heads. I have two theories:

1) For the designers, they aren't used to working directly with  
developers and taking feedback while development occurs. I think they  
might be more used to crafting away in Photoshop until their comp  
looks perfect, gets sign-off from the client/customer (see below), and  
then "throwing it over the wall" to development, who have to interpret  
it into HTML/CSS or whatever.

2) For the business heads, they don't actually care about development,  
only the end result. And so they get the most immediate satisfaction  
at the point where the designer has finished the comp, and they can  
see their idea realised (with the emphasis, alas, on 'real') in pixel- 
perfect detail. It could be that at this point, the business person  
feels like their idea has been basically finished, and now it only  
needs to be implemented.

Working in an agile way means delaying decisions until they absolutely  
have to be made, which can be at odds with people who are used to  
seeing very polished graphics before any development starts. It also  
means much more communication and less isolated thinking in business  
or design (or indeed development) silos, which is another disruption  
to typical design and hierarchical workflows.

Anyway - that's a bit of a rambly response, but hopefully there's  
something useful in it.

James

p.s. I'm not sure we ever solved the 'agile design' issue at that  
company, alas :(