Keywords

1 Introduction

The interdisciplinary projects allow to carry out all the knowledge acquired during the study stage. The great challenge of this type of projects is to identify what kind of methodology allows the different specialties involved to cooperate in the creation process without falling into the error of doing an isolated job and thinking that during the process the advances can be combined without generating compatibility problem. The challenge to raise a working methodology, to apply it and face the different barriers that arise along the way is what prompted the development of this document. In the following document, the context of the proposed project, the ideation phase to select the work methodology, the obstacles that were presented along the way and finally the lessons learned so far will be described [13].

2 Context

The Pontifical Catholic University of Peru as part of the specialty of computer engineering’s course curriculum presents in the tenth semester the course Development of Programs 2. In this course, seeks to apply the knowledge acquired throughout the career in the development of a software product. In comparison to other semesters, the structure of this course varied, trying to integrate computer knowledge with the innovative talent of the specialties of Industrial Design and Electronic Engineering. Thus, the interdisciplinary project “Zuku” was born, which is presented as a proposal of a solution to the current problems of service and attention in the cafeterias of the campus, develo** an integral redesign of the service that improves the processes of food purchase and the user’s experience in that process.

The problems that usually occur in these canteens are the congestion of queues, delays when paying and lack of signaling in the place. In addition, the delay in the replenishment is the problem that arises for the concessionaire.

3 Work Methodology

3.1 Concepts

In the present project, the teams of the different specialties arrived with their own work methodologies used in previous projects. The specialty of industrial design worked under the guidance of Bruno Munari, an Italian artist who provided much knowledge in that field, laying the foundations of design work methodologies in his many publications in which highlights “How objects are born” (1989) [1]. In this book, the author presents the foundations on the design process called “project method” which is based on the problems’ solution. Referring to the following figure (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.
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Bruno Munari design method [1].

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On the other hand, from a computer perspective, the methodologies or processes of software development have been categorized into two groups based on their work principles and philosophies, these are traditional methodologies and agile methodologies.

The traditional methodology like Unified Software Development Process (USDP) is based on the study of cases, which uses the UML notation to define its structures [2]. This methodology, extended by Rational Software Inc. gives rise to the traditional framework Rational Unified Process (RUP). The framework is oriented to uses cases, has an iterative and incremental process and focuses on architecture. The framework is made up of four phases and the activities carried out during the process can be classified into nine disciplines. Referring to the following figure (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2.
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Unified Software Development Process [2]

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The agile methodologies, which were popularized within the software development industry, follow an iterative, adaptive and cooperative development line with constant feedback in order to be able to respond to unpredictable scenarios that may arise during the project. It is based on twelve principles which are called Agile Manifesto [3].

The CHAOS REPORT demonstrates the growing success of agile methodologies in projects compared to traditional methodologies [4]. Referring to the following figure (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3.
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Chaos Report 2015 [4]

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In the current academic semester, the specialty of Industrial Design, as part of the study topics covered during the cycle, adopted Design Thinking as a work methodology. Design Thinking is a design methodology that takes as tools such as empathy and experimentation to propose innovative solutions. In this design process, the final user is always present as the center of everything. In 1969, Herbert Simon raised one of the first formal models of Design Thinking in his publication “The Sciences of the Artificial” in which he considered seven stages of the process [5]. Today there are many variants of Design Thinking which vary by the number of stages that are considered during the process. The Hansso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford proposes five stages of the process:

  • Empathise

  • Define the problem

  • Ideate

  • Prototype

  • Test

3.2 Selection of the Framework

The main characteristic of Design Thinking is to have interdisciplinary groups that can be part of the process of concretion of an innovative solution that can solve the problems presented.

During the semester, the members of the Industrial Design team carried out each of the stages of Design Thinking. They empathize with the student in the daily activity of going to the university canteens to make the purchase in person and later pick up, define the problem (which consisted in the discomfort of the service of buying and distributing food); devised solutions that can reduce that dissatisfaction of students by the work involved in acquiring food in the dining rooms, prototy** solutions such as devising many variants of sales flows and planning the design of new furnishings that provide a satisfactory shop** experience.

In the team of the specialty of informatic engineering, it was clear from the beginning that a web tool and mobile application that can support the new flow raised by the specialty of Industrial Design should be developed, in which it was considered as part of the flow the implementation of RFID modules that would be elaborated by the electronic engineering team.

Being aware that the computer solution was the one described above, it would not be applicable to use Design Thinking in the creation process since the solution was already known. Instead, what this methodology seeks is to find an unknown solution based on a problem. Consequently, the need to propose a work methodology that allows to involve all the specialties for the ideation of said IT solution, taking into consideration a design stage and a development one was determined [15].

A research stage was carried out in which the studies of Doctor Toni Granollers on the integration of the software development process and the user-centered design were taken as a basis [6]. Based on his research, a hybrid development model was proposed, which integrated characteristics of agile development methodologies with a collaborative work form for the iterative stage of design based on a variant of Design Thinking proposed by Google Ventures called Design Sprint.

Among the characteristics of agile development, the following were taken into consideration [11]:

From Scrum:

  • Sprint: basic development unit in Scrum, lasting from one to two weeks, which is composed of a list of features or requirements to be implemented in the sprint, known as Sprint Backlog, which is defined at the beginning of each sprint.

  • Daily meetings: daily meetings of short duration (15 min) to discuss the progress in the project, the difficulties encountered and the plans for the future.

  • Sprint retrospective: meeting after the completion of each sprint to discuss what can be changed so that the next sprint is more productive.

  • Burndown chart: graphic representation of the remaining work versus time, with the objective of making estimates about when the work will be completed.

From Kanban:

  • Kanban board: workflow visualization tool composed of cards that represent tasks located in different columns of a board (in its simplest form: ‘To do’, ‘Doing’, ‘Done’) to communicate the status and progress of those tasks.

  • Work in progress: section of the Kanban Board that represents work in progress. To optimize workflow, the goal of a Kanban system is to limit the amount of work in progress and minimize it as much as possible.

From XP:

  • Refactoring: a process that consists of, once the functionality is already implemented, making adjustments or internal restructuring of the code without changing its external behavior to guarantee its maintainability.

Regarding the design process that was considered as part of the proposed methodology, Design Sprint was taken as an activity to be carried out in the Spike of the development cycle. Spikes are small cycles that are not considered as development but are activities that help solve a problem encountered or add value to the sprint in its course.

Design Sprint uses the concept of Sprints that is part of the development cycles of agile methodologies. The Design Sprint phases are aligned to the five phases of Design Thinking, but it has its own five-day activity structure. The first day consists of map**, during which it seeks to understand the needs of users, technological capabilities and business objectives and define the central route desired for the user. On the second day, it is carried out the outlined which consists in diverging generating a rain of individual sketches that represent ideas of solution. The third day is for deciding, for it is reviewed all the ideas and converges among the main ideas. On the fourth day, the solution chosen the day before is prototyped. On the fifth day, the validations are made with potential users to obtain feedback [7]. Referring to the following figure (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4.
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Design sprint process [7].

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Within the main deliverables were considered notes, user journey maps, prototypes, reports of findings found in user tests and plans for the following steps.

Based on the previously proposed characteristics, the Sprint model was presented during the development of the software. Referring to the following figure (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5.
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Stages of the cycle of the proposed methodology

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The weekly sprint starts with the Spike’s Design Sprint, which must generate a tested prototype and become part of the next week’s development sprint. At the beginning of the following week, as it unfolds the first Sprint code, the second Sprint Design will take place. This result will be implemented in development sprint 2. Referring to the following figure (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6.
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Workflow of proposed methodology

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4 Results of the Application

During the life of the project the team were carried out the activities of the proposed methodology.

4.1 Map

During the map** stage, activities were carried out to understand what the user’s needs were and which could be solved with the computer tool to be developed (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7.
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Map process

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4.2 Sketch

In this stage, individual sketches were made on the screens to be presented to the user (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8.
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Sketch process

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4.3 Decide

During this stage the feasibility of the elaborated proposals is evaluated and was decided for those that added more value to the user (Fig. 9).

Fig. 9.
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Decide process

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4.4 Prototype

The stage of prototy** at high level was a job that was made by the specialty of Industrial Design with its extensive knowledge of prototy** tools and color theory (Fig. 10).

Fig. 10.
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Prototype process

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4.5 Test

Tests were carried out with users for the mobile application, recording the feedback they expressed during the user test [14] (Fig. 11).

Fig. 11.
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Test process

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4.6 Barriers to the Project in Progress

During the Zuku project, barriers that were found led to the modifying of work form initially proposed without losing the essence of it.

One of the major limitations was the availability of team members to carry out the Sprint designs; this led to a reduction of the activities planned for five days to only two days. An adjustment of time was made in activities taking on the first day the process of understanding, outlining and deciding and, on the second day, prototy** and testing.

It is not against the plan to reduce the time since Frans Stijnman, member of the Digital Strategy & Customer Engagement team of Osudio, expresses in his article “It will be more effective with the 3-day design sprint” that it is feasible to reduce the number of days of design sprint, obtaining results that are as valid as in a five-day process [8] (Fig. 12).

Fig. 12.
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Design sprint process in three days

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Another barrier that arose was the little experience of the group at implementing methodologies of development and user-centered design. The members of the Industrial Design team had knowledge of Design Thinking which was an important contribution. In electronic engineering, they had not experienced a work methodology as the proposal and, in the computer engineering team, two members were part of a Design Sprint project with Priority, with which they were responsible for guiding the entire group in learning this methodology.

Finally, it was expected that this concretion process will be enriched thanks to the participation of members from different specialties and it was expected that the approaches would be different and some cases generating debate in the design of a prototype, finally agreements were reached based on the which was the final prototype.

5 Conclusions

As part of the computer engineering specialty team, promoting the implementation of methodologies not used in previous software development projects was a risky but very enriching proposal when it came to reality. The impact that it could have on the development of the project was initially evaluated since they spent an important amount of time during the week to carry out these activities and this required commitment from all the members of the Zuku project team.

The interdisciplinary project was presented as the perfect opportunity to experiment with new ways of working with which we learn the importance of develo** a product from different perspectives.

To conclude this document, we thank the Industrial Design and Electronic Engineering team for the contribution from a different approach which could add considerably to the process of Designate Sprint development of the Zuku project.