Integrating Agile Development Processes and User Centred Design- A Place for Usability Maturity Models?

The aim of this paper is to explore and evaluate the role that can be played by Usability Maturity Models (UMMs) in integrating agile processes and User Centred Design (UCD). UMMs can be utilised in Agile projects as a diagnostic tool to assess the extent to which UCD is systematically and consistently implemented and the extent of effective implementation of UCD in development projects. This paper investigated the suitability of Nielsen Corporate Usability Maturity Model for utilisation in the Agile domain in order to assess the organisation’s UCD capability. It reported on applying Nielsen Model in five case studies that performed Agile and User Centred Design Integration (AUCDI) and utilising the model in assessing their usability maturity level. The results revealed the existence of a correlation between the success of AUCDI attempts and the AUCDI case study’s usability maturity level. These results can have positive implications on AUCDI practice since practitioners who aim to achieve the integration can utilise Nielsen model to identify their strengths and weaknesses in regards to UCD related aspects and accordingly plan for improvement.