The agile approach to software development has significant impacts on the practice of user-centered design (UCD), including usability evaluation. To better understand the role of iterative usability evaluation during agile development, we recently conducted a study whose focus was the usability evaluation of a personal health–management system. The complexities of healthcare systems require thoughtful and well-structured usability evaluations—especially when the design process occurs within the context of an agile development process.

Our study identified three different stages of the usability-evaluation process. Usability experts, system developers, and users participated at different stages of this process, which occurred iteratively during each two-week sprint. Our research also offered insights into how usability experts perceive their roles during rapid, iterative collaboration with system developers and users. We learned that usability experts serve as an essential bridge connecting system developers and users.

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