Agile methods and interaction design: friend or foe?

Agile methods and interaction design can be seen as incompatible software development methodologies: both suggest processes for creating high-quality software--one is arguing for quickly moving towards the source code level while the other suggests to wait with implementation activities until the design of the software is clearly laid out from a user's perspective. This apparent discrepancy is surprising given that both approaches put a strong emphasis on human aspects in software development. Agile methods focus on creating quality software with high business value but do not explicitly talk about how to ensure that the software is usable--this is the realm of interaction design. The presentation discusses commonalities and differences between both approaches and points towards integration opportunities: how can agile teams use interaction design approaches to create usable software with high business value.