RAPD: Rapid and Participatory Application Development of Usable Systems During COVID19 Crisis

Software development methods have been evolved to enable producing usable systems rapidly while considering all requirements. Several studies have focused on the need to balance between rapid development and capturing requirements related to user experience and business workflow. This balance has become more urging during COVID19 because many businesses want to quickly transfer to usable electronic systems that are accurate, efficient, easy to learn, satisfy users and support remote work. Therefore, this paper proposes a framework by integrating Rapid Application Development (RAD) method with Participatory Design (PD) method for enabling rapid production of usable systems. Both RAD and PD consist of design stages that can overlap and generate new phases where users participate in the design process and accelerate the production. Five usability tests are also added to the framework to validate the usability of the design at all stages. The Action Research method is used to assess the framework empirically in a context of an urgent need to an electronic system, and qualitative data analyses were conducted. The results show that the framework can be adopted by software companies because it satisfies the requirements of adopting software development methods. Also, the system developed using the framework is usable. The paper concludes that COVID19 affects software development by emphasizing rapid development while maintaining workflow. Also, using video conference for remote design assists in meeting users more frequently and in creating concise requirement documentation.

Automated summary

This paper proposes a framework that integrates Rapid Application Development (RAD) method with Participatory Design (PD) method for enabling rapid production of usable systems. The framework was empirically assessed and the results show that it satisfies the requirements of adopting software development methods and the system developed using the framework is usable. The study also highlights the impact of COVID19 on software development, emphasizing rapid development while maintaining workflow, and the benefits of using video conference for remote design.