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IFIP Conference on Human-Computer Interaction

INTERACT 2013: Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2013 pp 762–779Cite as

Existing but Not Explicit - The User Perspective in Scrum Projects in Practice

  • Conference paper

Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNISA,volume 8119)

Abstract

Agile software development processes are becoming more common, but this does not mean that the user perspective in the development is catered for. It has its challenges to integrate the users’ aspects in Scrum projects in practice. In order to better understand these challenges we have interviewed IT professionals using Scrum focusing on four different areas: responsibility for the user perspective, emphasis on usability and user experience through documentation, usability activities with users and the organisational and contextual settings for emphasizing the user perspective. Results show that the responsibility for the user perspective is unclear in Scrum projects, and that often the user perspective is neither discussed nor described in the projects. However, the user perspective is often present through informal feedback used to understand the context of use and inform design for example. Finally the paper presents implications for working with the user perspective in Scrum projects.

Keywords

  • Usability
  • user experience
  • user perspective
  • responsibility
  • agile software development
  • Scrum

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Uppsala University, Box 337, SE-751 05, Uppsala, Sweden

    Åsa Cajander

  2. Reykjavik University, Menntavegur 1, 101, Reykjavik, Iceland

    Marta Larusdottir

  3. KTH – Royal Institute of Technology, Lindstedsvägen 3, 10044, Stockholm

    Jan Gulliksen

Authors
  1. Åsa Cajander
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  2. Marta Larusdottir
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  3. Jan Gulliksen
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. CSIR Meraka Institute, PO Box 395, 0001, Pretoria, South Africa

    Paula Kotzé

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Cape Town, Private Bag X3, Rondebosch 7701, Cape Town, South Africa

    Gary Marsden

  3. Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, K1S 5B6, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Gitte Lindgaard

  4. Faculty of Science, Department of Computer Science, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, PO Box 77000, 6031, Port Elisabeth, South Africa

    Janet Wesson

  5. Institute of Research in Informatics of Toulouse (IRIT), University Paul Sabatier, 118 Route de Narbonne, 31062, Toulouse Cedex 9, France

    Marco Winckler

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Cajander, Å., Larusdottir, M., Gulliksen, J. (2013). Existing but Not Explicit - The User Perspective in Scrum Projects in Practice. In: Kotzé, P., Marsden, G., Lindgaard, G., Wesson, J., Winckler, M. (eds) Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2013. INTERACT 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8119. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40477-1_52

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40477-1_52

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

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