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Integrating User-Centred Design in Agile Development pp 77–96Cite as

Templates: A Key to Success When Training Developers to Perform UX Tasks

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Part of the book series: Human–Computer Interaction Series ((HCIS))

Abstract

Working with usability and UX design in an agile development context such as Scrum has been found challenging. Not all companies have the need or resources for a team of dedicated UX specialists. In other cases the UX team is perceived as a bottleneck. We therefore set out to investigate; how companies can perform UX tasks, when no or little UX expertise exists in the organization; if it is possible to perform this work in line with the Scrum sprints and how such work should be facilitated. To do this and since the Scrum framework states that every team member should be able to perform every work task, we trained software developers in three different companies to perform certain selected UX methods. The training was done as 1-day training sessions. The developers were provided with materials describing UX methods modified to be used in an agile, industrial environment. These consisted of guidelines, templates and cheat sheets. These materials were refined throughout the training sessions based on observations and feedback from the developers. We found that especially the templates were highly valued by the developers. The templates provided a quick overview of the method, guided them in the work and gave them security and confidence in conducting this type of work independently of the researchers. The templates described in the paper have been made publicly available and may be used freely.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank all participating staff at TC Electronic, SenDx Medical and Radiometer Medical for participating in this work. Furthermore, we thank Aalborg University, Radiometer Medical and the Danish Ministry for Science and Education for funding the research presented here.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Radiometer Medical, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Tina Øvad

  2. Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Tina Øvad & Lars Bo Larsen

Authors
  1. Tina Øvad
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  2. Lars Bo Larsen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tina Øvad .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Design, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

    Gilbert Cockton

  2. School of Computer Science, Reykjavik University, Reykjavik, Iceland

    Marta Lárusdóttir

  3. School of Physical Sciences and Computing, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, United Kingdom

    Peggy Gregory

  4. Department of Information Technolog, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Åsa Cajander

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Øvad, T., Larsen, L.B. (2016). Templates: A Key to Success When Training Developers to Perform UX Tasks. In: Cockton, G., Lárusdóttir, M., Gregory, P., Cajander, Å. (eds) Integrating User-Centred Design in Agile Development. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32165-3_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32165-3_3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-32163-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-32165-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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