I recently signed up for a YouTube account. Today, I scrolled down my profile page for the first time and got a virtual slap in the face when the following notice prominently slid into view:
Ouch! I have no friends? Yeah, well, you, I dunno… you’re UGLY, YouTube!
As more organizations adopt agile development methods, folks who practice the various disciplines related to user-centered design are forced to adapt. At the 7-Minute Soapbox in Waterloo on June 14, we heard one such story of adaptation from Christina Wood and Craig Miller, from the usability team at the local office of NCR.
Christina and Craig described the challenge of being “parachuted in” to support 30 applications in different stages of product development. They have found a successful model for integrating activities such as prototyping, but have lacked resources for proper usability testing. They are currently evaluating Morae, a usability testing tool from TechSmith, hoping that its time and cost savings might improve their ability to perform tests in an agile environment.
