Integrating HCI perspective into a mobile software development team: Strategies and lessons from the field

Abstract

Software engineers are traditionally concerned with performance and capabilities of mobile applications, while Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) approaches remain underused in many cases of industry everyday practice, especially in smaller companies, running on a tight schedule. The present paper reports a set of strategies empirically outlined by HCI and mobile development teams working integrated into different stages of the development lifecycle while keeping project constraints in mind, aiming to provide practical ways of incorporating academic knowledge about human factors into the development of mobile applications. We also discuss some lessons learned, which we believe may favor a more significant application of HCI issues in the mobile industry.