Prof. Dr. Frank Maurer

"Agile Methods and Interaction Design - Friend or Foe"

Agile methods and interaction design can be seen as incompatible software development methodologies: both suggest processes for creating high-quality software - one is arguing for quickly moving towards the source code level while the other suggests to wait with implementation activities until the design of the software is clearly laid out from a user's perspective. Agile methods focus on creating quality software with high business value but do not explicitly talk about how to ensure that the software is usable - this is the realm of interaction design.
The presentation discusses commonalities and differences between both approaches and examine integration opportunities: how can interaction design approaches be used by agile teams to create usable software with high business value.

Dr. Frank Maurer is a professor at the University of Calgary and leads the Agile Software Engineering group. His research interests include agile software methodologies, digital surfaces, integrating agile methods with interaction design approaches, framework & API usability, and application engineering. He was an Associate Editor of IEEE Software and served as Program Co-Chair for XP 2009 as well as Agile 2007, two leading conferences on agile methods. He is the principal investigator of the NSERC SurfNet Strategic Network. SurfNet is a Canadian researc halliance of academic researchers, industry partners, and government collaborators. The goal of SurfNet is to improve the development, performance, and usability of software applications for surface computing environments: nontraditional digital display surfaces including multi-touch screens, tabletops, and wall-sized displays.
Surfaces naturally support group work and collaboration. For more information see http://www.nsercsurfnet.ca