1 Usability in Agile development

Agile methods of development prescribe rapid prototyping and minimal documentation, and are particularly suitable for creating web interfaces for businesses, encouraging throw-away prototypes and allowing designers the freedom to be more creative. There are additional challenges in including usability techniques in Agile development, as it has multiple iterations and often substitutes the client as the user-advocate. This paper examines some of the ways Agile methods are being practiced in web development and discusses approaches to user centred methods that meet the challenges of rapid development to assure the usability of systems and ultimately customer satisfaction. Some of these methods are part of a more recent trend sometimes called Usability 2.0, which aims to make user centred methods more accessible, practical, affordable and of demonstrated value to the strategic directions of a business. As we shall see, none of these methods are really new, but useful adaptations of a well established approach that is proven to work well