User experience design (UXD) community of practice in malaysia and their practice constraints: A participatory action research

Abstract

In this study, the researchers’ participated in the user experience design (UXD) community’s events and programmes, and several constraints were identified. Participatory action research (PAR) allowed the researchers to contribute, either directly or indirectly, towards solving problems during the study. The participatory research itself gauged fundamental issues which pointed to the importance of grounded theory as an analysis approach in HCI. In this research, PAR contributed to understanding the UXD community practice and to uncovering the sources of practitioners’ frustrations, and in to identifying problems areas of UXD practices. In sum, PAR is the most appropriate method to understand UXD practice because of its abilities to Uncover silent practices through the netnography, observation and field studies. The answers to sources of frustration varied according to the method of data collection. In the netnography study, issues were more in-depth and related to clients’ attitude, behaviour and knowledge. In the participant observation study, the problems of practice mostly related to the lack of knowledge or awareness of user experience terminology in general. With survey methods, the problems related to the mindsets and knowledge of the people involved in development process. In the field study, lack of management support, skills and awareness among those involved in the development process and the clients and potential customers came to the fore.