Abstract:
Research shows that software projects have a high failure rate. User involvement has been identified as one of the most important success factors for software projects. User experience (UX) practices have been shown to engender several benefits with respect to the implementation and delivery of information systems. However, the institutionalisation of UX within organisations remains low. The question thus arises on why the managers of software programmes or projects neglect to incorporate UX practices into their teams� information systems development methodologies (ISDMs). This dissertation presents a study that investigated the perceptions of software programme or project managers in large South African enterprises about UX and its related concepts, its benefits, and the factors that restrict the adoption of associated practices. Interviews were conducted with six software programme or project managers working for large companies in six different industries. The main contribution is an explanation of the potential reasons for the lack of integration of UX activities into software development projects. The study finds that UX is often disregarded because the quality of software solutions as perceived by its users is not typically a measure of success for the project. A secondary contribution is an appraisal of eight potential instruments for persuading non-UX IT practitioners to integrate UX activities into their software projects. Results show that the demonstration of credible business cases and coherent recommendations from UX specialists have the highest power to persuade.
