Reykjavik University

User interaction in the Icelandic software industry

Software development is a growing business, also in Iceland. More and more focus has been laid on usability and user involvement during the development process. Companies have realized that usability may be used as a selling argument, and started to implement user interaction in to their development process. But how do the companies understand the concept of user involvement, and when do they apply user interaction in to the process? Agile methodologies have become some kind of phenomenon and Scrum, one of the agile methods, is often the process of choice during software development projects. The Scrum process has been criticized for not involving qualified users and ideas about adding additional UX iterations has been thrown.
The purpose of this research is to conduct a study of when Icelandic software companies include user into the development process. The research questions are:
� In what part(s) of the process are users asked to participate.
� How and when is the Icelandic software industry, that practices scrum, including users
� Are there any differences between companies practicing scrum compared to companies that do not.
How does the Icelandic software industry emphasize on usability and user centered design? This paper investigates how the software industry in Iceland approaches UCD, whether it is formal methods or company specific methods. The research material is based on a survey done among Icelandic companies, both pure software development companies and companies featuring an IT division.