What the Agile Manifesto left out 25 May 2007

Brian Marick revisits the original "Manifesto for Agile Software Development" and suggests a few improvements. Of particular interest to user experience architects are his comments on the organisation of information. Marick asserts that a clean design, isn't necessarily the best design:

"If you snoop around my house, you'll notice that there's a silverware drawer that's rather tidy and a junk drawer that's not. It's much easier to find a spoon than a battery. There's a reason for that: my family and I look for spoons several times a day, but for batteries much less often. Things you use often should be easy to find. Things you do often should be easy to do. Properties like this, which [author Richard P.] Gabriel collectively calls 'habitability,' can go against software principles. For example, a gas stove in the ground floor kitchen unnecessarily couples the kitchen to the laundry room in the basement, with its gas dryer. It would be a cleaner design to put both the stove and the dryer in the same place. Except that would be stupid. Our comfort in cooking overrides saving twenty feet of pipe."

[via 37signals]