Title: Is Task Board Customization Beneficial? - An Eye Tracking Study,
Abstract: The task board is an essential artifact in many agile development approaches.
It provides a good overview of the project status. Teams often customize their
task boards according to the team members' needs. They modify the structure of
boards, define colored codings for different purposes, and introduce different
card sizes. Although the customizations are intended to improve the task
board's usability and effectiveness, they may also complicate its comprehension
and use. The increased effort impedes the work of both the team and team
externals. Hence, task board customization is in conflict with the agile
practice of fast and easy overview for everyone. In an eye tracking study with
30 participants, we compared an original task board design with three
customized ones to investigate which design shortened the required time to
identify a particular story card. Our findings yield that only the customized
task board design with modified structures reduces the required time. The
original task board design is more beneficial than individual colored codings
and changed card sizes. According to our findings, agile teams should rethink
their current task board design. They may be better served by focusing on the
original task board design and by applying only carefully selected adjustments.
In case of customization, a task board's structure should be adjusted since
this is the only beneficial kind of customization, that additionally complies
more precisely with the concept of fast and easy project overview.