Every Agile Team Should Include UX

How do you address UX in Agile?

Agile was founded to intuitively address the problems developers run into. It doesn’t consider UX as part of its focus. The “old way” needs to evolve – addressing the waterfall model, the static design of the engineering process, and the problem of engineers taking on both engineering and UX responsibilities. An integrated, user-centered process better addresses the project holistically, focusing on business viability, user desirability and technical feasibility. UX integration allows the team to address evolving needs of the customer and user, establishing a regular cadence and a space for collaboration and communication throughout the project.

What is the benefit of an integrated UX team in agile design?

UX designers bring invaluable experience, strategy, and a user-empathetic view to the design and engineering teams. Although it can be difficult, establishing an integrated UX team delivers benefits like:

• Visibility across teams
• Definition of what needs to be done
• Work focused on outcomes instead of outputs
• A culture of continuous learning
• Lessened technical and design debt
• Intuitive user experience
• Stronger relationships between teams

UX and empathetic design are part of the holistic Agile approach, embedded throughout the design, engineering, and delivery process. It creates space for evolution and flexibility in the design process while still adhering to the needs of designers of engineers in the delivery of a Minimally Viable Product considering business needs, scalability, and support.

Discover how Viagio applies Agile design to its partnerships, check out The Value of a Design System.