Smarter Software with Activity-Centered Design
Smarter Software with Activity-Centered Design
About the Book
All too often simply the wrong software gets created. It may work but not as the users or stakeholders expected. Or it may solve the wrong problem altogether. Despite the vast improvements in the way how software teams create software since the Agile Manifesto was published in 2001 still many software projects fail in one way or another.
To many, the word design only describes how something looks but in fact it means how it works and looks. Well designed products are created based on a deep understanding of which activities users want to perform and are well engineered. This fitness makes these products superior to their competition and in some cases such products shake up an entire industry.
Activity-Theory traces its roots back to the thoughts of Goethe, Kant and Hegel. Being used by Russian and Finnish psychologists in the field of learning and children development it now is slowly finding its way into Interaction and Software Design.
This book shows how Activity Theory can be used to create smarter software. You will learn how a sucessful software development team can effectively work with users and stakeholders to deliver high quality solutions.
About the Author
Table of Contents
- Frequent Feedback Desired
- Preface
- About Software Development
- Activity Theory
- Human Activity, Actions, And Operations
- Learning And Development
- The Being of Software
- Tests Are Software Too
- Quality
- Software Product Design
- Activity-Centered Design
- Acquisition of Knowledge Through Design
- Speed
- Building Software Is Cheap - Designing Software Is Expensive
- Analysis, Design, Deployment
- Why Software Design Is Expensive
- The World Software Exists In
- Actions and Activities
- The Relationship Between Activity And Action
- Mediating Tools
- Business Activity And Action
- User Actions And Tasks
- System Action
- Operations
- Maps
- Maps Of The Physical World
- Ontological Maps
- Mapping Actions And Activities
- Domain Language
- Activities And Actions
- Roles And Standard Practices
- Common Issues And Breakdowns
- Concerns, Interests And Fears Of Domain Actors
- Applying Activity-Centered Design
- From Understanding Activities to User Stories
- User Stories
- Focus On The Outcome
- Discover Personas
- Validate Story Ideas Against an Activity System
- Story Map To Guide The Implementation
- Isn’t that upfront design?
- Discoveries During Implementation
- Finding Acceptance Criteria
- Define ticket types
- Buying a ticket to the Wizbang conference
- Putting It Together
- Review Of User-Centered Design
- Focus On Activities And Working Software
- The Activity-Centered Design Loop
- Organizational Structure And Management
- Why Traditional Software Projects Fail
- Too Much Focus On Implementation Or Construction
- Managing People Instead of Projects
- Tunnel Vision of Corporate Requirements Analysts
- Poor Software Quality
- A Team Of Designers
- Being Agile
- Product Owner
- Business Analyst
- Tester
- Programmer
- User Experience Designer
- Influence Of Tools
- Reinforcement Of Silos Due To Tool Choice
- New Rules Based On Tool Choice And Loss Of Main Influencer
- Managing Software Design Projects
- Inception
- Solution Scoping
- Development
- Extension
- Appendix
- Well Working Techniques And Practices
- Test-Driven Design
- Domain-Driven Design
- Acceptance Test-Driven Development
- Walking Skeleton
- Comics
- Bibliography
The Leanpub 60-day 100% Happiness Guarantee
Within 60 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.
See full terms
80% Royalties. Earn $16 on a $20 book.
We pay 80% royalties. That's not a typo: you earn $16 on a $20 sale. If we sell 5000 non-refunded copies of your book or course for $20, you'll earn $80,000.
(Yes, some authors have already earned much more than that on Leanpub.)
In fact, authors have earnedover $12 millionwriting, publishing and selling on Leanpub.
Learn more about writing on Leanpub
Free Updates. DRM Free.
If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).
Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers) and EPUB (for phones, tablets and Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.
Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.
Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them
