UX work in software startups: A thematic analysis of the literature

Abstract Context: Startups are new and fast-growing innovative businesses. These companies also deal with uncertain market conditions and work under constant time and business pressures. Although User Experience (UX) has been widely adopted in the software industry, this has not been a reality in the context of software startups yet. Several factors might influence whether, which, and how UX is adopted by software startups. Objective: The objective of this paper is to investigate in the literature how software startups work with UX and to discover the relationship between software development practices and UX in startups. Methodology: Our methodology is composed of three main activities: (1) mapping the literature seeking publications on UX work, software engineering, and startups, which resulted in 21 relevant publications; (2) a thematic analysis based on the output of step 1 (i.e., the relevant literature); and (3) refining the themes found out in step 2 and the design of their relationships to explain the link between UX work and software startups. Results: The challenges, opportunities, and practices associated with UX in the context of software startups reported by the literature were organized in a set of themes. As a result, seven themes were defined so as to identify needs and opportunities related to UX work in startups. In addition, we synthesize open questions from the literature and suggest new ones to further research directions about the adoption of UX by software startups. Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate that software startups require an approach to UX that is more adherent to the startups’ dynamic and disruptive nature. We also suggest emerging open research questions which should be answered to promote the evolution of UX as applied to software startups.

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