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56 Chapter
4. Developing Applications in Cooperation: Xtreme Prototyping
4.1.6 Iterate
After the experience session of the previous phase, developers
selectively integrate the feedback of users.
Here, it is critical to further keep the users overall goals
in mind. Naturally, users are biased towards current
tasks and try to move the developers
concept in that direction. Hence, careful incorporation of user feedback
should be used to revise the concept (Section 4.1.3)
and result in changes of the prototype (Section
4.1.4), similar as proposed by [
Carroll et
al. 1991 ]
. On the other hand, it may also happen that the concept was not su
ciently represented by the prototype, such that a new iteration may focus on prototype refinements only.
The iteration process can be stopped if, firstly, developers are confident with the
new innovative application and if, secondly, the users judge the application to be
generally feasible and useful. Clearly, once this stage is reached, other approaches
such as user-centered design may be used to refine the envisioned solution towards
a fully-functional prototype which then can be evaluated in more detail.
4.2 Stakeholders
To successfully apply Xtreme
Prototyping it is essential to cooperate with the ap-
propriate stakeholders of the problem domain. By definition stakeholders are any
group or individual who can a
ect or will be a ected by the application being de-
veloped. The important point is to not only talk to the final end-users who will be
most a ected but also to other parties and decision makers as well. We found that
end-users can be very skeptical towards radical changes since they would be a
ected by them immediately. Furthermore, we found that end-users may be also less will-
ing and less capable to extrapolate and re-think their work practices. However, the
input of the frequent hands-on user is as important for successful developments as
the input of occasional users or parties that will be just a
ected by the introduction to a certain extend.
Finding the appropriate stakeholders is di
cult. On way to approach this is to start
along interactions between stakeholders as proposed by
[ Nuseibeh and Easterbrook
2000
] . First, the approach starts with so-called baseline stakeholders who are the
end-users, developers, and decision makers. The consecutive steps are to identify
the other stakeholders by exploiting the relationships between those and the base-
line stakeholders. It is proposed to identify parties that provide information and
support tasks of the baseline stakeholders. Others are those who process, inspect
and supervise. The final party is least related only interacts or communicates to
a certain extend to the baseline. By iterating through all these three groups most
stakeholders should be identified.
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