The Current State of User Experience Practices in South African

Organisations

Trevor Chawana

and Funmi Adebesin

Department of Informatics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

Keywords: User Experience, User Experience Design (UXD), UXD Practice, Software Development.

Abstract: Incorporating user experience design (UXD) into systems development processes can give an organisation a

competitive advantage over its rivals. However, the number of South African organisations that have

embedded UXD into their systems development processes was historically low. This paper reports on the

extent to which a selection of South African organisations has incorporated UXD practices into their systems

development processes. Interviews were conducted with participants in four organisations. The results showed

that the landscape of UXD practices is improving in South Africa.

1 INTRODUCTION

One of the important components of information

systems development is user interface (UI) design as

it is the first point of contact between the user and the

system (Gkonos, Iosifescu Enescu, & Hurni, 2019).

There is growing evidence that incorporating user

experience design (UXD) practices into the

development of information systems can give a

business a competitive advantage over its rivals

(Paunovic, 2017; Sward & Macarthur, 2007).

However, according to studies by Pretorius, Hobbs,

and Fenn (2015) and Brosens (2017), the number of

South African organisations that have incorporated

UXD into their systems development processes was

low. User experience (UX) can be defined as “a

momentary, primarily evaluative feeling (good-bad)

while interacting with a product or service”

(Hassenzahl, 2008, 12).

Embedding UXD into an organisation’s systems

development processes requires the organisation to

follow a methodical process, which in turn, requires

specialised skills and investment in human capital

(Rohn, 2007). Business decision-makers are often

reluctant to support the incorporation of UXD

practices into systems development processes

because of the intangible nature of their benefits

(Kuusinen & Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila, 2012).

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6902-5420

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0512-016X

However, from an organisational perspective, good

UX can lead to the creation of the right product for

users, reduction in call centre volumes to report

errors, and increased customer loyalty (Aleryani,

2020). These benefits can translate into increased

profitability (Donahue, 2001; Kolbeinsson,

Lindblom, & Thorvald, 2020). Positive UX does not

happen by accident, it is the result of the intentional

incorporation of UXD practices into an organisation’s

systems development processes (Erdős, 2019).

Poorly designed user interfaces can lead to

inefficient task execution and provoke negative user

emotions like frustration and anxiety (Sonderegger,

Uebelbacher, & Sauer, 2019). However,

contemporary consumers expect and consider an

optimised user experience to be a basic requirement

(Bilgihan, 2016; Paunovic, 2017) and will not hesitate

to abandon applications that tend to elicit negative

emotions (McCurdie et al., 2012).

The research reported in this paper forms part of a

broader study on the optimisation of the UXD

processes for the timeous development of information

systems (Chawana, 2020). However, this paper is

specifically focused on the current state of user

experience design practices in a selection of South

African organisations. The main research question for

the paper is “to what extent are South African

organisations incorporating user experience design

practices into their systems development processes?”

Chawana, T. and Adebesin, F.

The Current State of User Experience Practices in South African Organisations.

DOI: 10.5220/0010677800003060

In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction Research and Applications (CHIRA 2021), pages 81-89

ISBN: 978-989-758-538-8; ISSN: 2184-3244

The structure of the remaining sections of the

paper are as follows: section 2 provides an overview

of various UXD methods/approaches. The research

design and methodology are discussed in section 3,

while section 4 contains the research results. The

discussion and conclusion of the paper are presented

in section 5.

2 USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN

According to Kujala, Roto, Väänänen-Vainio-

Mattila, Karapanos, and Sinnelä (2011, 1), the main

objective of UXD is “to improve customer

satisfaction and loyalty through the utility, ease of

use, and pleasure provided in the interaction with a

product”. UXD follows a user-centred design (UCD)

approach where the needs, wants, capabilities, and

limitations of users are at the centre of the design

process (Rogers, Sharp, & Preece, 2011). It is

premised on the principles of active user

involvement, holistic perspective on design,

prototyping, iterative and evolutionary design, as well

as product evaluations in their context of use

(Gulliksen et al., 2003). This section provides an

overview of various methods/approaches that are

used in UXD. It should be noted that a design team

may not necessarily follow all the

methods/approaches discussed in this section. This is

especially the case when a project’s budget or

schedule is constrained.

User research is a technique used to gain better

insight into users’ needs, behaviours, experiences,

and motivations from their perspective, as opposed to

the perspective of designers (Baxter, Courage, &

Caine, 2015; Plonka, Sharp, Gregory, & Taylor,

2014). Data gathering techniques, such as interviews,

surveys, and focus groups can be used to understand

users’ needs (Rogers et al., 2011).

Personas are vivid characters created to represent

each user type that may use a product in a similar way.

Personas enable designers to understand users’ needs,

experiences, behaviours, and goals throughout the

design process (Gualtieri, 2009; Kelle, Henka, &

Zimmermann, 2015). Ideally, a persona should

include the name, traits, photo, and a narrative of the

daily routines of the target user group. Personas

should also be based on the outcome of user research

conducted to understand a target user group’s needs

and goals (Gualtieri, 2009; Kelle et al., 2015). An

alternative approach to the classic persona is the

proto-persona technique where the persona created is

not based on user research. Rather, it is based on a

project stakeholder’s knowledge of real users

(Pinheiro, Lopes, Conte, & Zaina, 2019; Tomlin,

2018). One of the shortcomings of proto-persona is

the potential for bias or misconceptions about the

target user group (McKeen, 2019).

Another method that can be used to gain insight

into users is user journey mapping, which graphically

depicts the steps taken by a user to accomplish a goal

while interacting with a product or service (Howard,

2014; Kojo, Heiskala, & Virtanen, 2014). User

journey maps enable designers to frame the user’s

motivations & needs in each step of the journey from

the user’s perspective (Kojo et al., 2014). Unlike

personas, which provide a static view of a user group,

a user journey map gives a chronological outline of a

user’s experience with a product or service over time

(Howard, 2014).

A user story is a high-level description of the

features or functionality that a user requires to

accomplish a specific task or goal (Clarke & Kautz,

2014). A user story is typically written in the format

“as a (role/persona) I want (job to be done/feature) so

that (benefit)”. A use case, on the other hand, is a

UXD method that describes the sequence of steps that

users will take to perform specific tasks while

interacting with a system (Noda, Kishi, & Fukuzumi,

2020; Nudelman, 2018).

Another method that can be used in UXD is

competitor analysis (Da Silva, Silveira, Melo, &

Parzianello, 2013). Competitor analysis enables

organisations to learn about a competitor so that

strategies can be formulated to respond appropriately

to the actions of the competitor (Czepiel & Kerin,

2012). From a UXD perspective, competitor analysis

allows the design team to compare their design with

the products of their competitors, to get a deeper

insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the

design, as well as the gaps in the market (Neves,

2018).

Concept testing involves estimating the extent to

which users would want to use a product or service

(Sproll, Peissner, & Sturm, 2010). In the context of

UXD, concept testing is used to measure the user

experience of a design during the early stages of its

development. This allows the design to evolve based

on users’ goals, needs, and motivations (Fronemann

& Peissner, 2014; Sproll et al., 2010).

Prototyping is a software development method

that involves the creation of models of a proposed

system to communicate with stakeholders and test the

viability of the design (Budde, Kautz, Kuhlenkamp,

& Züllighoven, 1992). Prototyping as a UCD

approach is typically incorporated into the UXD

process early in systems development to enable a

shared understanding of users’ needs among the

CHIRA 2021 - 5th International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction Research and Applications

designers and the users (Gulliksen et al., 2003;

Hartson & Pyla, 2012). Prototypes can be low or

high-fidelity. Low-fidelity prototypes are sketches

that are created early in the design phase to test

proposed solutions (Gulliksen et al., 2003; Wojdziak,

Bansemir, Kirchner, Lochner, & Groh, 2016). Low-

fidelity prototypes are useful to communicate design

ideas with stakeholders, they are easy to create and

modify, and enable designers to have an open mind

without committing too early to any particular design

solution (Bansemir, Hannß, Lochner, Wojdziak, &

Groh, 2014; Gulliksen et al., 2003; Wojdziak et al.,

2016). High-fidelity prototypes on the other hand

typically resemble the final solution in terms of their

look and feel. (Bansemir et al., 2014). Unlike low-

fidelity prototypes, high-fidelity prototypes can

support limited user interactions because some

functionality of the final system would have been

implemented in such prototypes. The creation of

high-fidelity prototypes requires more time, effort,

and resources than low-fidelity prototypes, and

designers are typically more reluctant to modify high-

fidelity prototypes because of the efforts expended on

their creation (Suranto, 2015).

Heuristic evaluation is a well-known usability

evaluation method where experts review a design

using a set of evaluation heuristics or guidelines, for

example, the Nielson heuristics (Nielsen, 1994a),

early in the design process. The method enables

designers to get feedback about interface design

elements before a more detailed usability test is

conducted (Jackson & Cheng, 2018). As opposed to

usability evaluation heuristics, the heuristics used in

UX evaluation should be context-specific due to the

unique nature of UX (Rantavuo & Roto, 2013). One

of the key issues in heuristic evaluation is the number

of experts that should be involved in the evaluation.

According to Nielsen (1994c) five expert evaluators

can identify an aggregate of 75% of usability

problems, but adding more experts will not

necessarily increase the number of problems detected.

Nielsen (1994c) recommends that any heuristic

evaluation should involve at least three experts.

Usability testing is used to evaluate the extent to

which users can complete specific tasks effectively

and efficiently on a system (Baxter et al., 2015).

Participants that are representative of the target users

of the system should be involved in usability testing,

with the goal being to assess the extent to which the

system meets specific measures of usability (Rogers

et al., 2011). As with heuristic evaluation, the number

of participants that should be involved in the

evaluation is a key issue in usability testing. In the

past, as many as 50 participants were recruited for

usability evaluation (Barnum, 2002). However, the

discount usability testing proposed by Nielsen

(1994b) requires three to five participants. This

approach is less expensive and relatively effective,

making it more practical for incorporation into the

UXD process.

3 RESEARCH DESIGN AND

METHODOLOGY

This study followed the interpretive research

paradigm and is premised on the philosophical

assumption that there are multiple realities, which are

socially constructed through shared meanings (Klein

& Myers, 2001). A qualitative case study research

strategy was employed. This strategy was motivated

by three factors; (i) UXD often occurs in the context

of systems development projects, so the choice of

research strategy had to be suitable for investigating

UXD practices within organisational contexts; (ii) the

researchers wanted to understand the data that was

collected from the study participants’ perspectives;

and (iii) the investigation had to be carried out in more

than one organisation, with research data elicited

within each organisation’s natural context. Case study

research is a good strategy to use for qualitative

studies where the experiences of the actors are critical

to the study (Benbasat, Goldstein, & Mead, 1987).

Given that the focus was on more than one

organisation, the multiple case study strategy was

employed using four different organisations as the

cases (Yin, 2011). Because participation in the study

was voluntary, only the organisations that were

willing to grant permission to their employees to

participate in the study were included in the cases.

Data collection was based on the purposive

sampling method (Etikan, Musa, & Alkassim, 2016).

Semi-structured interviews were conducted in four

South African organisations. The four participating

organisations had UXD practices embedded in their

systems development processes. UX specialists and

UX team leads in the four organisations were

interviewed. Individuals in roles that work closely

with UX specialists, for example, Business Analysts

and Product Owners were also interviewed

Data analysis was guided by the five steps to

interpretive studies’ data analysis of Terre Blanche,

Durrheim, and Painter (2006) which entailed (i)

familiarisation with the research data; (ii)

identification and documentation of responses that

were relevant to answering the research question; (iii)

grouping similar insights into themes using the

The Current State of User Experience Practices in South African Organisations

bottom-up analysis approach; (iv) linking the

contents from the interview transcripts to the themes;

and (v) interpreting and reporting the research

findings.

Ethical clearance for this research was granted by

the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences

Research Ethics Committee at the University of

Pretoria. All four participating organisations granted

formal permission to involve their employees as study

participants. Individual study participants from each

organisation also signed informed consent.

Participants were assured that the data will only be

used for research purposes. Neither monetary nor

non-monetary incentive was offered to participants.

4 RESULTS

4.1 Study Participants

As stated in section 1, the research reported in this

paper is part of a broader study on the optimisation of

the UXD process for the timeous development of

information systems (Chawana, 2020). Hence, a

detailed discussion of the results from the broader

study is outside the scope of this paper. This section

presents the results that are specifically related to the

research question that is answered in this paper,

namely “to what extent are South African

organisations incorporating user experience design

practices into their systems development processes?”

Thirty-three participants were interviewed from

four organisations, hereinafter referred to as Org1,

Org2, Org3, and Org4, respectively. Three

organisations (Org1, Org2, and Org3) operate in

contract software development environments where

they develop software systems and applications for

clients from different industries. Org1 is a relatively

small company located in Johannesburg that was co-

founded by the Creative Director and has four design

specialists in its employ. Org2 has its head office

located in Johannesburg, with branches in other parts

of South Africa, the United States and Australia. At

the time of the interviews, 30 people form part of the

design team in Org2. Org3 is a management

consulting company with 80 people forming part of

the design team. Finally, Org4 is a financial services

institution and one of the ‘big four’ banks in South

Africa. In addition to South Africa, Org4 has offices

and branches in 15 countries across Africa, Asia and

Europe. At the time of conducting the interviews, 140

UX design specialists were working on both

customer-facing and internal systems and

applications. Participants from Org4 function as part

of an in-house development team. A summary of the

study participants from the four organisations and

their roles is provided in Table 1.

4.2 User Experience Design Processes

Followed by Participating

Organisations

During the interview sessions, participants were

asked about their software development processes

and the different types of UXD activities that have

been incorporated into their design practices. This

section presents the UXD methods/approaches that

are followed by the participating organisations.

The four participating organisations typically

begin their software development processes with the

definition of the business problem that will be

addressed by the target software (see Figure 1).

Project stakeholders, including representatives of the

client organisation (in the contract development

settings), the representatives of the business unit(s)

that triggered the development of the project (in the

in-house development setting), the business analyst,

and the UX designers are involved in the problem

definition process. This allowed for a shared

understanding of the business problem that will be

solved by the target software.

Table 1: Study participants per organisation.

Org_ID No of

participants

Development context Participants’ role

Org1 2 Contract development Creative Director and Lead UX Designer

Org2 9 Contract development Lead UX Designer, User Interface (UI) Designer, UX

Researcher, Lead Business Analyst, and Lead Engineer

Org3 5 Contract development Lead UX Designer and UX Designer

Org4 17 In-house development Creative Director, Lead UX Designer, UX Designer, User

Interface (UI) Designer, UX Researcher, Lead Business

Analyst, Product Owner, Customer Experience (CX)

Specialist, and Service Design Lead

CHIRA 2021 - 5th International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction Research and Applications

Analysis of the interview data showed that three

main UXD activities were common across all the

participating organisations. One of these UXD

activities is the creation of user journey maps. As

stated in section 2, user journey mapping is used to

graphically illustrate the steps followed by a user to

realise a goal while using a system. Org1, Org3, and

Org4 typically create two types of user journey maps,

the ‘As-is’ and ‘To-be’ journey maps. The ‘As-is’

journey map enables the design team to understand

the steps that are currently being followed by users to

accomplish tasks on an existing system.

Participants from Org1 and Org3, which operate

as part of contract development teams, typically hold

workshops with representatives from the contracting

client to understand the current user journeys. In the

case of Org4, where the participants operate as part of

an in-house development team, workshops facilitated

by the customer experience specialist, the UX

researcher and the UX designer are held with

representatives from the business unit(s) that request

a new system or application to understand the existing

user journey. Participants from Org2 do not create an

‘As-is’ user journey map. The three contract

development organisations (Org1, Org2, and Org3)

typically create the ‘To-be’ user journey maps, which

will then be verified by representatives of the

contracting organisations, whereas Org4 participants

typically hold collaborative brainstorming sessions

with the business unit(s) representatives to create the

desired ‘To-be’ user journey map.

Figure 1: User experience design processes per

organisation.

Another UXD activity that is common across the

four organisations is the creation of low and high-

fidelity prototypes. As stated in section 2, prototypes

are used early in the development process to facilitate

a shared understanding of users’ needs by users and

designers. Participants from all four organisations

typically create low-fidelity prototypes using paper

sketches, whiteboards, or prototyping software. The

prototypes are then shared with representatives from

the client company (Org1, Org2, and Org3) or

representatives from the business unit(s) that

requested the new system or application (Org4). In all

cases, the low-fidelity prototypes are refined based on

feedback from relevant stakeholders and evolve into

high-fidelity prototypes.

Usability testing is the third UXD activity that is

common across all four participating organisations.

As stated in section 2, usability testing involves

evaluating the extent to which users can complete

specific tasks on a system with efficiency and

effectiveness. Although all four organisations

conduct usability tests, the people that are involved

varied from one organisation to another. For example,

in the case of Org1, other employees working in Org1

whose profile matches that of the personas that have

been created would typically be involved as usability

test participants. However, such individuals would

not have been involved in the design of the system

being evaluated. This approach is followed because

budget is typically not allocated to the recruitment of

end-users as participants in usability tests.

Participants from Org1 acknowledged the

shortcoming of this approach to usability testing.

However, due to budget constraints, they have

adopted what they perceived as a pragmatic approach

instead of not conducting any usability test. In the

case of Org2, usability test participants are typically

recruited through a third-party recruitment agency.

However, in situations where there is a time

constraint, representative users from the contracting

organisation would be involved as usability test

participants. In addition, the design team at Org2

typically caps the number of usability test participants

to three in an attempt to speed up the design process.

In the case of Org3, usability test participants were

typically recruited only for features that are related to

‘complex’ tasks. The usability testing approach

adopted by Org4 is different from the ones used by

the three contract development organisations. In

Org4, a series of tests are typically carried out on the

design concepts, the ‘To-be’ user flow journey maps,

and the high-fidelity prototypes with user

representatives from the business unit(s) that

requested the new system or application. The final

system is also tested with end-users that are recruited

through an external agency as test participants.

UxD process Org1 Org2 Org3 Org4

Problem definition

Competitor analysis

Creation of personas

(or proto-personas)

User stories

User journey mapping

Concept testing

Prototyping

o Low-fidelity prototype

o High-fidelity prototype

Heuristic evaluation

Usability testing

The Current State of User Experience Practices in South African Organisations

Three of the participating organisations (Org2,

Org3, and Org4) have competitor analysis as part of

their UXD processes. As stated in section 2,

competitor analysis as a UXD activity enables

designers to compare a product or design with that of

competitors. In Org2 and Org3, competitor analyses

are carried out through market scanning, interviews

with competitors’ customers, and investigation of

local and international trends. For Org4, the design

team often takes a first-hand experience approach to

the analysis of the organisation’s competitors. For

example, one participant indicated she would

sometimes sign up as a competitor’s customer so that

she could use their mobile banking apps to gain better

insights into competitors’ services.

Three of the participating organisations (Org1,

Org2, and Org4) incorporate the creation of personas

into their UXD processes, while participants from

Org3 often create proto-personas. As indicated in

section 2, a persona is a vivid representation of a user

group that may use a system in a similar way, based

on the insights derived from user research. A proto-

persona on the other hand is based on stakeholders’

knowledge of users as opposed to the results of user

research. The proto-personas created by participants

from Org3 are typically validated with

representatives from the contracting company.

Three participating organisations (Org1, Org3,

and Org4) create user stories as part of their UXD

processes. As indicated in section 2, a user story

provides a high-level description of the functionality

that a user requires to achieve a specific objective

when using a system. In all three organisations, the

user stories provide the basis for the features that will

be implemented in a target system.

Concept testing is one UXD activity that is used

by two of the participating organisations (Org2 and

Org4) as part of their design process. As stated in

section 2, concept testing allows for the estimation of

the extent to which users would use a product. In the

case of Org2, concept testing is often used to

determine whether a proposed system would appeal

to the target users and to identify possible

improvements to the user journey maps. On the other

hand, Org4 uses concept testing to evaluate the low-

fidelity prototypes that have been created for potential

flaws. Org1 and Org3 do not conduct concept testing

as part of their UXD processes.

Heuristic evaluation is another UXD activity that

has been adopted by two of the participating

organisations (Org2 and Org3). As indicated in

section 2, the heuristic evaluation involves experts

evaluating interface elements using a set of

guidelines. In both organisations, designers conduct

heuristic evaluations on their contracting clients’

existing systems or applications as part of the

problem definition process where there is an existing

system or application. The outcome of the heuristic

evaluation is then used to identify opportunities for

improvement on the existing system. Org1 and Org4

do not use heuristic evaluation as part of their UXD

processes.

5 DISCUSSION AND

CONCLUSION

This study investigated the extent to which South

African organisations are incorporating user

experience design practices into their systems

development processes. As stated in section 1,

previous studies by Pretorius et al. (2015) and

Brosens (2017) showed that the number of South

African organisations that have embedded UXD into

their systems development processes was low. Based

on the findings of the study reported in this paper, the

landscape of UXD appeared to be improving in South

Africa. As discussed in section 2, some of the

methods that could be used to incorporate UXD into

systems development processes include user

research, user stories, personas, prototyping, concept

testing, and heuristic evaluation (Fronemann &

Peissner, 2014; Gualtieri, 2009; Plonka et al., 2014;

Rantavuo & Roto, 2013).

All four participating organisations have three

common UXD activities as part of their systems

development processes. These UXD activities are

user journey mapping, prototyping, and usability

testing. However, the extent to which the UXD

activities have been infused varied across the four

organisations. For example, Org1, Org3, and Org4

typically create ‘As-is’ and ‘To-be’ user journey

maps, while Org2 typically create only ‘To-be’ user

journey maps. Similarly, only three organisations

(Org1, Org2, and Org4) have incorporated the

creation of personas into their UXD practices,

whereas Org3 typically creates proto-personas. As

stated in section 2, proto-personas can lead to

misconceptions about a target user group (McKeen,

2019).

Another variation in the participating

organisations’ application of UXD practices relates to

the types of end-users that are involved during design.

As stated in section 2, UXD is primarily a UCD

approach where users should be actively involved

throughout the development process (Gulliksen et al.,

2003). Working in contract development contexts,

CHIRA 2021 - 5th International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction Research and Applications

participants from Org1, Org2, and Org3 typically

involve their clients’ representatives as opposed to the

actual end-users of the systems they develop. On the

other hand, participants from Org4 who work as part

of the organisation’s in-house development team

have direct access to users from the business unit(s)

that request the development of new applications or

modifications to existing ones. Hence, the system

development context influences the extent to which

end-users could be involved in the organisations’

UXD processes. Examples of the influence of the

system development context were evident in the

processes that were being followed in the creation of

user journey mapping, prototyping, personas, and

usability testing activities. The design team in Org4

would typically hold facilitated workshops with end-

users from the applicable business unit(s) in the

organisation to create and test design concepts, user

journey maps, and prototypes. End-users are also

directly involved in usability tests. In the case of

Org1, staff members who were not involved in the

design of the system being evaluated would be

recruited as usability test participants. While Org2

sometimes recruits end-users as participants in a

usability test, this is not always the case. When there

is a budget constraint, representatives of the

contracting organisation would be involved as

usability test participants. Similarly, the design team

from Org3 only recruits end-users as usability test

participants for features that were deemed to involve

‘complex’ tasks.

The use of concept testing is another UXD

activity that differs in its adoption and application

across the participating organisations. Only two

organisations (Org2 and Org4) have incorporated

concept testing into their UXD practices. However,

the application of this activity is different in the two

organisations. Org2 typically uses concept testing to

ascertain whether a proposed system would appeal to

the target users whereas Org4 uses the method to

evaluate low-fidelity prototypes for potential design

flaws.

Three of the four organisations (Org2, Org3, and

Org4) typically perform competitor analysis as part of

their UXD processes. However, this analysis is done

through market scanning and interviewing the

contracting company in Org2 and Org3. Whereas,

Org4 often tries to experience its competitors’

products directly by signing up as a client of the

competitor to gain better insights into competitors’

products.

Only two of the four organisations (Org2 and

Org3) have adopted heuristic evaluation as part of

their UXD practices. In both cases, the design team

conduct heuristic evaluation on their clients’ existing

systems or applications as part of the problem

definition process only if there is an existing system

or application.

The application of two UXD activities was similar

across all four organisations. Low-fidelity prototypes

are created by the design team and then shared with

representatives of the contracting organisation in the

case of Org1, Org2, and Org3. The low-fidelity

prototypes are shared with user representatives from

the business unit(s) that requested the new system or

application in Org4. In all cases, the low-fidelity

prototypes typically evolve into high-fidelity

prototypes based on feedback from the stakeholders.

Similarly, the three organisations that adopted user

stories (Org1, Org3, and Org4) use the user stories as

the basis of the features that will be implemented in a

target system or application.

The adoption and application of user stories were

also similar among the three organisations that have

incorporated this UXD activity into their systems

development processes. Org1, Org3, and Org4 all

develop user stories as the foundation of the features

that will be implemented in a target system or

application.

In conclusion, there is evidence that the

incorporation of UXD practices into systems

development processes is improving in South African

organisations. However, the extent to which UXD

activities have been assimilated differs, especially

between in-house and contract development contexts.

Even among contract development organisations, the

study results showed that the application of UXD

activities differed.

A limitation of this research is that organisations

that have incorporated UXD practices into their

systems development processes were purposefully

selected as the cases for the study. Future research

will broaden the participating organisations to include

those that may not necessarily have adopted UXD

practices into their systems development processes.

Future research will also consider the influence of the

incorporation UXD practices on organisational

competitive advantage.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank the four organisations and their

staff for participating in the research.

The Current State of User Experience Practices in South African Organisations

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