Balancing user and business goals in software development to generate positive user experience

Abstract

Business contexts represent a big challenge for software development, specifically in terms of finding a balance between business goals and user goals. The users of a business application are forced to use it as part of their jobs. It would be beneficial to their motivation, their health, and their performance if the software they use were not only functional in the sense that the job can be done with it, but that doing the job would be a pleasure for them. The challenge is in engineering intrinsic aspects into the product in a systematic way and finding a decent equilibrium between the right numbers of functional aspects and hedonic aspects. If an ideal balance is achieved between these elements, the software can support the achievement of the expected results for the company and also generate a positive user experience (UX) for its users. In this chapter, we discuss the definition and structure of business and user goals and their mutual relationships in the work environment. We also present an integrated software development approach that allows engineers to build this bridge between business and users goals as well asa case study in which this approach was successfully applied. © 2012 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.