An Extreme Makeover Jill Burkart H. Leonard Liaw Amaris Vigil Andrew Switzky Diana Miranda-Murillo Don Turnbull The University of Texas at Austin School of Information

Agenda Introduction Our Process Our XIA Experience Final Product Conclusion

Introduction – Background Project Background –Class project for advanced information architecture (IA) class –Apply concepts from extreme programming (XP) to the IA redesign of a web site (=XIA) –UT Libraries site chosen for re-architecture because they were at beginning stages of a redesignUT Libraries

Introduction – our methods Brief intro to our methods –Kent Beck’s Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change –Lectures and class discussion –Stick around for Dr. Turnbull’s presentation for more details

Values –Communication, Simplicity, Feedback, Courage Fundamental Principles –Rapid Feedback, Assume Simplicity, Incremental Change, Embracing Change, Quality Work Basic Activities –Coding, Testing, Listening, Designing Introduction – XP Basics

XP in Practice –Planning –Short Releases –Metaphor –Simple Design –Testing –Refactoring –Pair Programming –Collective Ownership –Continuous Integration –40-Hour Week –On-Site Customer –Coding Standards Introduction – XP Basics

Introduction – Tools Tools we used –Both Mac and PC –Group list –Group web server –Development tools –Graphics tools –High-tech classroom

Our Process – Scanning the Environment Environmental Analysis –Looked at public and academic library sites –Looked at online bookstores –Discussed interesting ideas, features and interactions in class

Our Process – Finding a Focus Functional Analysis of UT Library site –Essential functionality Searching Accessing Databases User Services –Ideas for additional features BookBag (My Account/History) Advanced Search Narrowed focus to research portal

Our Process – Users in Context User Stories –Wrote a user story for each section –Described Who, What, Where, Why and How

Our process – Example User Story Select article, journal, or index (article) Choose a topic from the subsequent list System returns articles in the topic chosen Annotated list designates physical location of articles Articles of interest are flagged by user Abstracts of each flagged article are displayed User makes final selection of articles based on abstracts Abstracts are printed

Our process – doing the work Designing the Site –Defined the overall framework first Top level IA/Navigation Style sheets Page composition/template –Pairs worked on each section –Full group review User advocate role Compare against user stories Check for consistent interactions across site

Our XIA Experience Concepts/ideas that worked well –Pair “IAing” –User Stories –Prioritizing functionalities

Our XIA Experience Places we deviated from XP –‘pure-play’ bottom up approach –Explicit testing against user stories –‘pure-play’ pair programming

Our XIA Experience Lessons Learned –Pair programming Work habits and coding styles must match Strength in diversity –IA Refactoring Cumulative result from group work –Situation may influence experience (class project)

Final Product Let’s look at the final design

Conclusion Learned XIA methodology Applied to our project Next steps?

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