Communication through Boundary Objects in Distributed Agile Teams

Personal communication between User-Centered Design (UCD) specialists and developers is important for communicating user needs and design solutions in agile development. In distributed projects where opportunities for personal communication are limited, the design documentation is an important surrogate. This study has investigated the perceived effectiveness of boundary objects in a distributed agile team, and their role in communicating target user needs. Six in-depth interviews with UCD specialists showed that the boundary objects rarely communicate underlying needs of the users but rather focus on interaction with the system that is being developed. The used boundary objects also do not work as stand-alone deliverables; they need to be explained and elaborated. Making the boundary objects comprehensive enough to be stand-alone is seen as too time consuming and not worth the effort. For agile projects with distributed teams, this creates hand-over and follow-up problems.