[IxDA Discuss] True or False: In a perfect world we'd allcreate html clickable wireframes after the static ones havebeen done

[W Evans]

This must be a particular interpretation of Agile by the developers you have
worked with. There is nothing explicit in either the agile
manifesto<http://agilemanifesto.org/>or principles
behind the Agile Manifesto <http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html> that
speaks about prototypes or throw-away work - that said - there is also
nothing in Agile that talks about users. Nothing. Zilch. It's all about
fast, functional, working software. There is nothing about usable, useful,
beautiful, human-centered software. In fact - a literal reading of the
principles and manifesto would say that feature and function driven design -
not user-centered design.

Perhaps that's why I am going to Larry Constantine's seminar at UI12 about
Agile and UCD <http://www.uie.com/events/uiconf/2007/sessions/constantine/>.
I need to see/hear how those two can work together - because I fear that
Agile could kill UCD in most software development organizations.

-- 
~ will

IxDA Interaction 08 | Savannah
http://interaction08.ixda.org/
-------------------------------------------------------
will evans
user experience architect
wkevans4 at gmail.com
-------------------------------------------------------
On 10/1/07, Wilson, Russell <Russell.Wilson at netqos.com> wrote:
>
> Unfortunately, yes, in both cases it came from developers in the midst
> of embracing Agile as their new life manifesto!  :-)
>
> "No throw away work" apparently has been written down somewhere and
> just as we face the dreaded "reduce the number of clicks" commandment, I
> fear we may have to deal with yet another quickly-interpreted, not
> completely
> understood, taken word-for-word in the absence of any other logical
> criteria mantra...
>
> whew...
>
> :-)
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Dmitry Nekrasovski [mail.dmitry at gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, October 01, 2007 6:40 PM
> To: Wilson, Russell
> Cc: Dan Saffer; IxDA Discuss
> Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] True or False: In a perfect world we'd
> allcreate html clickable wireframes after the static ones havebeen done
>
> Russell,
>
> Did this argument come from the development team? I'm guessing not,
> because I would seriously question the competence of a developer who
> demands that a prototype be made reusable on the premise of "no
> throw-away work".
>
> Prototyping tools usually yield code that flagrantly violates basic
> software engineering principles like separation of concerns,
> encapsulation, etc. For that reason, in my experience, prototypes are
> rarely worth the effort of converting into production code.
>
> Even more importantly, any effort a designer puts into making a
> prototype production-worthy is likely to be effort not spent on
> refining and testing the actual design.
>
> The project I'm currently working on is an agile one, and I'm building
> a prototype for it with the same platform and language (Eclipse
> RCP/Java) used in the production application. However, the same
> properties that make the prototype easily amenable to changes make it
> completely worthless for code reuse purposes. And that's just the way
> I like it. :)
>
> Dmitry
>
> On 10/1/07, Wilson, Russell <Russell.Wilson at netqos.com> wrote:
> > > and no one will give IxDs the 3-6 months to
> > > learn xaml/wpf + c# necessary to do the prototypes themself.
> >
> > I've had the "agile" argument thrown at me regarding this.  (no
> throw-away
> > work).  True, not an accurate interpretation on their part, but it has
> > happened more than once...
>
>