UX Requirements Engineering in Network Management Software Development: Case study in Finland
Aare, Janne (2023)
2023
Tietotekniikan DI-ohjelma - Master's Programme in Information Technology
Informaatioteknologian ja viestinnän tiedekunta - Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2023-04-28
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202304033422
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202304033422
Tiivistelmä
UX development for enterprise software is often challenging and in complex business environments like telecommunication industry the challenge level is extreme. Complex products such as network management systems are used by engineers in network operations centers to manage vast and complex radio access networks. As these networks are part of critical infra-structure for many nations, the communication between vendors and customers is often bureaucratic, and the software development process is handled by a complex organization the UX research and development must adapt to the challenge level.
This thesis is a case study of a major telecommunications equipment vendor which is struggling with the mentioned challenge. UX research and development has traditionally focused on much simpler products and problems so there are not any working examples to refer to. Modern agile software development has proven to be so hasty that there is not enough time for UX research and development. This has resulted in poor feedback and a delayed product schedule. It is important to know how users experience the use of a network management system in different times and situations and which experiences turn their motivation from wanting to use the system to wanting to use some other system instead. Learning to do this in such a challenging environment could be a contribution to the scientific community as well because the most challenging cases can discover new areas of research that can provide knowledge for the good of everyone.
The first question was to find out how a UX requirement could be defined and formulated so that everyone could understand and test that the case product follows the UX vision. The second thing to find out was if experts in the R&D organization could be able to relate to the users and be able to discover the experiences that are crucial for the success of the product. And third was to find out if a separate team could improve the product by experimenting with prototypes before new features are taken into implementation. The research method was a semi structured interview for convenient sample of R&D experts and a qualitative analysis of the answers.
The result was that UX requirements are complex, dependent on UX strategy, and their exact formulation needs more research and experimentation. It turned out that R&D experts have an opportunity to discover some experiences but not all, and the discovery relies on raising the UX maturity of the organization and introduction of researchers, resources, and creative freedom for the task. The experimentation ahead of implementation appears to involve many caveats but will most probably improve the design dramatically if prerequisites are met.
This thesis is a case study of a major telecommunications equipment vendor which is struggling with the mentioned challenge. UX research and development has traditionally focused on much simpler products and problems so there are not any working examples to refer to. Modern agile software development has proven to be so hasty that there is not enough time for UX research and development. This has resulted in poor feedback and a delayed product schedule. It is important to know how users experience the use of a network management system in different times and situations and which experiences turn their motivation from wanting to use the system to wanting to use some other system instead. Learning to do this in such a challenging environment could be a contribution to the scientific community as well because the most challenging cases can discover new areas of research that can provide knowledge for the good of everyone.
The first question was to find out how a UX requirement could be defined and formulated so that everyone could understand and test that the case product follows the UX vision. The second thing to find out was if experts in the R&D organization could be able to relate to the users and be able to discover the experiences that are crucial for the success of the product. And third was to find out if a separate team could improve the product by experimenting with prototypes before new features are taken into implementation. The research method was a semi structured interview for convenient sample of R&D experts and a qualitative analysis of the answers.
The result was that UX requirements are complex, dependent on UX strategy, and their exact formulation needs more research and experimentation. It turned out that R&D experts have an opportunity to discover some experiences but not all, and the discovery relies on raising the UX maturity of the organization and introduction of researchers, resources, and creative freedom for the task. The experimentation ahead of implementation appears to involve many caveats but will most probably improve the design dramatically if prerequisites are met.