Design Process adoption: A Survey in the Brazilian Software Industry

Abstract

There is a growing concern in the software industries to ensure that systems have usable interfaces, and it is common for the professional designer to be responsible for pursuing this goal. Given the different design processes available in the literature and the different background of professionals, in this paper we seek to understand how the adoption and definition of the design process occurs in the Brazilian software industry. At first, we carried out an online survey, seeking information about professional experiences and the application of design processes. We selected ten survey respondents to be interviewed. We obtained 73 responses with the survey, from which 78% apply a design process, with Design Thinking being the most cited. By conducting the interviews, we found that the processes applied are usually defined according to the project type, while professionals who do not apply processes report a lack of appreciation of the designer’s work by the team. The results highlight differences in how each company proceeds about its performance in the design sector. Overall, our results suggest that design processes bring a substantial positive impact to the projects they are applied to.