Integrating User Experience Design and Agile Software Development Processes

More than a million global corporations and Information Technology (IT) companies design and develop software solutions for their products and services. To properly manage software development, different Agile Software Development methodologies have been widely adopted. To support good user experience, user-centered methodologies such as Design Thinking (DT) / User Experience (UX) Design processes have been employed alongside. However, organizations often struggle to effectively apply these two types of processes together in a holistic and smoothly integrated way as a part of overall solution design and development - often due to challenges in process know-how, skills, perception, mindset, communication, and operations. The lack of seamless integration has often led to higher utilization of resources, loss of valuable insights during handoffs between different roles of project teams, and unsatisfactory solutions for end-users and customers. Ultimately, this has resulted in suboptimal outcomes in meeting business milestones in a competitive market. To address these inefficiencies and better respond to the fast-changing demands of businesses and customers, we propose a greater research focus on developing and testing frameworks that can foster a more holistic integration of design and development aspects in software creation. This position paper highlights the value proposition and the primary issues and discusses potential research directions for bringing together the critical aspects of software frameworks - processes, people, and artifacts necessary for successful adoption and organizational change.