Combining agile methods and user-centered design to create a unique user experience: An empirical inquiry

With the advent of the Internet and websites, many people believe that website development is as easy as dragging an icon here, placing a menu there, and adding a picture. However, there is more to website design than many people believe especially if you desire to develop a website that meets the needs of the user and follows software engineering principles. While there are many software process models and human-computer interaction activities that focus on the user, the integration of these activities is quite difficult, especially as it relates to website development. This paper presents the results of an empirical investigation that combined one activity of human-computer interaction, user-centered design, and one software engineering method, agile development into a small-scale development exercise that specifically focused on website development. The results from the study suggest that using the hybrid approach for small-scale projects is easy to implement, but is not without challenges.