Papers by Eva-Maria Schön
Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, 2021
Context: Twenty years after the publication of the agile manifesto, agility is becoming more and ... more Context: Twenty years after the publication of the agile manifesto, agility is becoming more and more popular in different contexts. Agile values are changing the way people work together and influence people’s mindset as well as the culture of organizations. Many organizations have understood that continuous improvement is based on measurement.Objective: The objective of this paper is to present how agility can be measured at the team level. For this reason, we will introduce our questionnaire for measuring agility, which is based on the agile values of the manifesto.Method: We developed a questionnaire comprising 36 items that measure the current state of a team’s agility in six dimensions (communicative, change-affine, iterative, self-organized, product-driven and improvement-oriented). This questionnaire has been evaluated with respect to several expert reviews and in a case study.Results: The questionnaire provides a method for measuring the current state of agility, which take...
Usability Professionals, Aug 28, 2015
Kanban ist eine agile Projektmanagementmethode, die auf geringe Durchlaufzeiten während des Entwi... more Kanban ist eine agile Projektmanagementmethode, die auf geringe Durchlaufzeiten während des Entwicklungsprozesses abzielt. Bereits im Jahre 2013 haben wir uns mit der Herausforderung beschäftigt, wie eine Integration von Human-Centered Design in Kanban gestaltet werden kann. Ein wesentlicher Punkt dabei ist es, einen Gesamtüberblick über die zu bearbeitenden Aufgaben zu erhalten. Hierzu haben wir verschiedene Methoden vorgestellt, welche den Kanban-Prozess um Human-Centered Design Aktivitäten erweitern. In einer Case Study zum Relaunch eines Internetportals wurden die Methoden im interdisziplinären Team produktiv eingesetzt, um ein Produkt mit positiver User Experience zu entwickeln. Nach Abschluss des Projektes wurden Interviews mit den Projektbeteiligten durchgeführt, Ergebnisse zusammengefasst sowie Vor-und Nachteile herausgearbeitet.
Journal of Information Systems Engineering and Management, 2021
E-government projects in public administration often fail due to lacking communication and unclea... more E-government projects in public administration often fail due to lacking communication and unclear requirements. Furthermore, users are usually not involved in the development of digital products. The agile transformation offers a promising approach to improve communication and the affinity to change regarding requirements in e-government projects. In addition, the agile transformation, as a paradigm shift from a planoriented to an user-centered development, enables a high degree of user-orientation. In order to support and measure the agile transformation, a screening instrument was developed in previous research and was adapted to the context of public administration. This screening instrument enables the measurement of the progress in agile transformation using a personality questionnaire. In this paper we define a seven-step prototypical process model for the application of the screening instrument in public administrations. This process model accompanies the use of the screening instrument in seven steps as a recommendation for usage and enables a targeted and continuous improvement in the agile transformation process in the context of public administration authorities.
Bei der Entwicklung digitaler Produkte werden Personas oftmals eingesetzt, um ein besseres Verstä... more Bei der Entwicklung digitaler Produkte werden Personas oftmals eingesetzt, um ein besseres Verständnis für die Nutzer*innen und ihre Bedürfnisse zu erlangen. In der Praxis hat sich gezeigt, dass die Einführung von Personas oftmals mit einigen Hürden verbunden ist. Dieser Artikel reflektiert die Erfahrungen der unternehmensweiten Einführung von Personas bei einem regionalen Zeitungsverlag. Zum einen wird das Vorgehen zur Entwicklung der Personas vorgestellt und zum anderen werden die Hürden bei der unternehmensweiten Einführung der Personas diskutiert.
Usability Professionals, 2019
Im Zusammenhang mit der Digitalen Transformation wird es für Organisationen immer wichtiger sowoh... more Im Zusammenhang mit der Digitalen Transformation wird es für Organisationen immer wichtiger sowohl flexibel auf sich schnell ändernde Marktbedingungen als auch auf disruptive Technologien zu reagieren. Agile UX und Lean User Research ermöglichen es, dass Organisationen sich stärker auf die Bedürfnisse ihrer Kund*innen und Nutzer*innen fokussieren. In diesem Artikel wird gezeigt, wie Lean User Research in der Praxis angewendet wird. Darüber hinaus geben wir Einblicke zu der Verbreitung innerhalb der UX-Community. Im Rahmen einer Paneldiskussion mit Expert*innen aus Wissenscha$ und Industrie haben wir qualitative Daten erhoben die Best Practices zu Lean User Research darstellen. Des Weiteren haben wir quantitative Daten mi%els eines Fragebogens erhoben. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die agile Produktentwicklung einen Einfluss darauf hat, wie User Research durchgeführt wird. Die Teilnehmer*innen der Befragungen bewerten die Aspekte von Lean User Research zwar als wichtig, wenden diese al...
Usability Professionals, 2019
Die Nutzerzentrierung stellt im Kontext der öffentlichen Verwaltung aufgrund der Diversität der Z... more Die Nutzerzentrierung stellt im Kontext der öffentlichen Verwaltung aufgrund der Diversität der Zielgruppe einen zentralen Aspekt bei der Entwicklung digitaler Produkte dar. Das agile Paradigma unterstützt hierbei eine hohe Nutzerzentrierung durch seinen Fokus auf den Menschen und das Produkt. In diesem Artikel wird ein Ansatz zur Erreichung einer hohen Nutzerzentrierung durch die agile Transformation im Kontext der öffentlichen Verwaltung vorgestellt. Ziel ist es, auf Basis der Ergebnisse einer bereits durchgeführten Bestandsaufnahme zur Agilität in öffentlichen Verwaltungen, die Herausforderungen in der agilen Transformation zu erarbeiten. Anschließend wird ein bestehendes Screening-Instrument an diesen Kontext angepasst, sodass es zur Fortschri%sermi%lung und -steigerung der agilen Transformation in öffentlichen Verwaltungen eingesetzt werden kann. Die Herausforderungen werden den sechs Dimensionen des Screening-Instruments, Kommunikativ, Änderungsaffin, Iterativ, Teamzentriert, ...
Agile methodologies have an impact on how organizations carry out Requirements Engineering (RE). ... more Agile methodologies have an impact on how organizations carry out Requirements Engineering (RE). In this context, organizations use different kind of agile techniques like artifacts, meetings, methods or roles, but there is a lack of specific guidelines for agile RE. The aim of this paper is to present a modeling language for supporting organizational aspects of agile RE. It allows the visualization of agile RE concepts and their relationships, which can be used to define guidelines for a specific organization, project or domain. The modeling language for agile RE is used in projects in industry and our experiences reveal that it supports organizations in detecting problems and visualizing internal conflicts during the agile requirements phase, among other benefits.
IEEE Access, 2020
In the context of Digital Transformation, organizations need to react in a flexible manner to rap... more In the context of Digital Transformation, organizations need to react in a flexible manner to rapidly changing markets and disruptive technologies. Customer and user satisfaction are important in order to succeed. Agile User Experience (UX) Design and Lean User Research enable the organization to focus on the needs of its customers and users. The objective of this paper is to investigate the best practices that exist for user research in agile product development. In particular, we want to answer the following question: What impact does Lean User Research have and how is it conducted in industry? We have carried out several studies to answer our questions. First, we created the pattern Lean User Research by means of a systematic pattern mining process. Next, we gathered quantitative data by means of a questionnaire study. This was followed by the collection of qualitative data in a panel discussion with experts from academia and industry. The results reveal that Agile has an impact on how user research is conducted because of the speed of agile product development. In addition, we provide best practices of Lean User Research and show how they are applied in industry by giving practical examples. Moreover, we found that the UX community values the aspects of Lean User Research as important, but do not constantly apply it in their practical work. We can conclude that people have to experiment and adapt the best practices of Lean User Research to their special contexts as well as develop an agile mindset. INDEX TERMS Agile software development, human-computer interaction, requirements engineering, user experience, user research. MARÍA JOSÉ ESCALONA received the Ph.D. degree in computer science from the University of Seville, Spain, in 2004. She is currently a Full Professor with the Department of Computer Languages and Systems, University of Seville. She manages the Web Engineering and Early Testing Research Group. She also collaborates with public companies, such as Andalusian Regional Ministry of Culture and Andalusian Health Service in quality assurance issues. Her current research interests include requirement engineering, web system development, model-driven engineering, early testing, and quality assurance.
International Journal of Interactive Multimedia and Artificial Intelligence, 2017
New heuristics are often further developments of established heuristics and emerge, for example, ... more New heuristics are often further developments of established heuristics and emerge, for example, by making an adjustment to another context being examined, such as mobile end devices [7], persuasive technologies [8] or patient safety for medical devices [9].
Proceedings of the 11th International Joint Conference on Software Technologies, 2016
The integration of Human-Centered Design (HCD) and Agile Software Development (ASD) promises the ... more The integration of Human-Centered Design (HCD) and Agile Software Development (ASD) promises the development of competitive products comprising a good User Experience (UX). This study has investigated the integration of HCD and Kanban with the aim to gain industrial experiences in a real world context. A case study showed that requirements flow into the development process in a structured manner by adding a design board. To this end, the transparency concerning recurring requirements increased. We contribute to the body of knowledge of software development by providing practical insights into Human-Centered Agile Development (HCAD). On one hand, it is shown that the integration of HCD and Kanban leads to a product with a good UX and makes the development process more human-centered. On the other hand, we conclude that a cross-functional collaboration speeds up product development.
Computer Standards & Interfaces, 2017
Nowadays, Agile Software Development (ASD) is used to cope with increasing complexity in system d... more Nowadays, Agile Software Development (ASD) is used to cope with increasing complexity in system development. Hybrid development models, with the integration of User-Centered Design (UCD), are applied with the aim to deliver competitive products with a suitable User Experience (UX). Therefore, stakeholder and user involvement during Requirements Engineering (RE) are essential in order to establish a collaborative environment with constant feedback loops. The aim of this study is to capture the current state of the art of the literature related to Agile RE with focus on stakeholder and user involvement. In particular, we investigate what approaches exist to involve stakeholder in the process, which methodologies are commonly used to present the user perspective and how requirements management is been carried out. We conduct a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) with an extensive quality assessment of the included studies. We identified 27 relevant papers. After analyzing them in detail, we derive deep insights to the following aspects of Agile RE: stakeholder and user involvement, data gathering, user perspective, integrated methodologies, shared understanding, artifacts, documentation and Non-Functional Requirements (NFR). Agile RE is a complex research field with cross-functional influences. This study will contribute to the software development body of knowledge by assessing the involvement of stakeholder and user in Agile RE, providing methodologies that make ASD more human-centric and giving an overview of requirements management in ASD. Fig. 1. In ASD people focus on outcomes and how they can fulfil human needs through the outputs they produce.
Von der Idee zum Prototypen – Werkzeuge für die agile Welt
Damit in agilen Entwicklungsprojekten, basierend auf einer Idee, ein nutzerzentrierter Low-Fideli... more Damit in agilen Entwicklungsprojekten, basierend auf einer Idee, ein nutzerzentrierter Low-Fidelity Prototyp entwickelt werden kann, bietet es sich an, die Idee zunächst zu einer Vision zu konkretisieren. Hierbei handelt es sich um einen iterativen Prozess, für den im Human Centered Design unterschiedliche Werkzeuge zur Verfügung stehen. Der vorliegende Beitrag stellt eine Auswahl von Werkzeugen zur Konkretisierung der Vision vor, die sich in agilen Prozessen als Best Practices bewährt haben. Dabei werden konkrete Vorlagen und Einsatzmöglichkeiten für diese Werkzeuge erörtert.
International Journal of Interactive Multimedia and Artificial Intelligence, 2014
The internet provides a wide range of scientific information for different areas of research, use... more The internet provides a wide range of scientific information for different areas of research, used by the related scientific communities. Often the design or architecture of these web pages does not correspond to the mental model of their users. As a result the wanted information is difficult to find. Methods established by Usability Engineering and User Experience can help to increase the appeal of scientific internet information services by analyzing the users' requirements. This paper describes a procedure to analyze and optimize scientific internet information services that can be accomplished with relatively low effort. It consists of a combination of methods that already have been successfully applied to practice: Personas, usability inspections, Online Questionnaire, Kano model and Web Analytics.
Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, 2017
Agile Software Development (ASD) is becoming more popular in all fields of industry. For an agile... more Agile Software Development (ASD) is becoming more popular in all fields of industry. For an agile transformation, organizations need to continuously improve their established approaches to Requirements Engineering (RE) as well as their approaches to software development. This is accompanied by some challenges in terms of agile RE. The main objective of this paper is to identify the most important challenges in agile RE industry has to face today. Therefore, we conducted an iterative expert judgement process with 26 experts in the field of ASD, comprising three complementary rounds. In sum, we identified 20 challenges in three rounds. Six of these challenges are defined as key challenges. Based on the results, we provide options for dealing with those key challenges by means of agile techniques and tools. The results show that the identified challenges are often not limited to ASD, but they rather refer to software development in general. Therefore, we can conclude that organizations still struggle with agile transition and understanding agile values, in particular, in terms of stakeholder and user involvement.
In the beginning of a user centered agile development process, three important elements have to b... more In the beginning of a user centered agile development process, three important elements have to be defined. 1) A software product with a defined set of features, 2) the intended usage context and 3) the future software product user. The clear definition of these elements right from project start will lead to a more accurately developed software product. A combination of well-known tools like “personas” and sketches of the context of use as well as requirements as persona driven user stories make a comprehensive basis. During an iterative visioning phase, also referred to as sprint 0, directly before starting the first sprint, those tools can be integrated to assure a complete software product definition process. That will ensure that, even in this early stage, the agile project is focused on user needs represented by “personas”.
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Papers by Eva-Maria Schön