Incorporating User-Centered Design into an Agile Development Process

Q: My company just switched to an Agile Development Process. How can I incorporate user-centered design and research activities into Agile Development?

Agile Software Development is a process that minimizes risk by limiting the amount of time and effort associated with each software release. There’s a lot we like about Agile, as opposed to traditional waterfall development (which involves finishing a discrete, concrete step before starting the next step) or the old “pass it over the wall” method. However, an Agile process must be implemented carefully in order to avoid introducing usability problems and other issues into the user experience. For advice on how to do this, please see our paper on Incorporating User-Centered Design into an Agile Development Process, the content of which is longer than we care to post in this blog.