User involvement in agile development processes in small and medium-sized enterprises: An interaction designer’s perspective

Abstract

With the popularization of Internet technology, more and more small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) start to provide their services online. Agile software development, as one of the most widely-adopted development methodologies in these companies, does not put the end-user aspects in the key position. The combination of user-centered design and agile software development can complement each other and improve the user satisfaction of a product, thus attracts increasing academic attention. However, in practical terms, engaging the end-users in the agile development processes seems to be vague and has many difficulties especially within SMEs.

To explore the ways of enhancing the user involvement in the agile development process in SMEs as an interaction designer, I joined an ongoing mobile application development project in a small Chinese financial company called Rong360. By following an action research process, I am able to solve the user involvement problems in Rong360 and conclude the responsibilities, practical challenges and suggestions for the interaction designers, which could support their work within other similar contexts.