Abstract
This study investigates approaches to, and the practices of, User Experience Design
(UXD) in relation to the software engineering industry in South Africa. The inquiry spans
identification of a diversity of processes, frameworks, methodologies, and methods
applied in the field. Factors relating to, and having an influence on UXD in practice, such
as the individual designer, the designer-developer relations, contextual organisation and
business factors and the broad market context, all fall within the scope this study.
Historically, digital products have been created with little regard for the needs or
experiences of their intended end-users. This issue persists to this day. Despite the
growing emphasis on UXD, many software applications still fail due to minimal user
involvement and poor user experiences.
The research aimed to investigate the practices of design professionals working in the
South African software engineering industry to establish fundamental UXD approaches,
methods, and techniques. Thereafter, these were compared to each other and then to
global notions of best practices in UXD. The purpose of this research was, first, to better
understand local ‘best practices’ in UX, and then second, to critically compare South
African best practices in UX to global standards. Using a qualitative multiple-methods
approach, positioned in the pragmatic paradigm, data were collected through case
studies and interviews with South African Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and UX
designers in the South African software engineering industry.
Findings indicate that processes and frameworks vary significantly across organisations
and are often neither optimal nor efficient. Moreover, the execution of these processes
is frequently impeded by factors beyond the process itself, including organisational
culture, business priorities, management practices, and the roles of design and
development practitioners. These challenges underscore a broader issue: HCI and UXD
researchers and practitioners have long struggled to establish a consistent set of
methods, given the field’s inherent complexity and multifaceted nature. UXD remains an...