Apply-<x>Mag: One Tool to Support Many Inclusive Design Methods
Sadia AfrozRudrajit ChoudhuriFatima A. MoussaouiAmreeta ChatterjeeMargaret BurnettAnita Sarma
Sep 2026
Human-computer Interaction
Abstract
Doing inclusive design in HCI practice can be labor-intensive, a costly barrier that some companies and HCI practitioners may be unwilling or unable to overcome. Yet, not doing inclusive design is costly too, in the form of UX barriers that disproportionately disadvantage under-served user populations. To address this problem, we introduce Apply-<x>Mag, an LLM-powered tool to support HCI practitioners' work to design their products inclusively to wide ranges of users. Apply-<x>Mag is general, supporting any inclusive design method that can be expressed as <x>Mags (i.e., using attribute ranges and heuristics). It is also effective: Empirical results with researcher and practitioner teams using various combinations of two <x>Mags on 7 products showed Apply-<x>Mag precision averaging 90-99% and recall averaging 82-89%. Further, its environmental costs were reasonable, costing about the same resources as 2-4 ordinary Google searches.
This publication proposes a definition and a classification of agile software development approaches and analyses ten software development methods that can be characterized as being "agile" against the defined criterion.
P. Abrahamsson, O. Salo, Jussi Ronkainen et al.· arXiv.org· 727 citations· ⚡54
The study shows that agile practices improve both informal and formal communication, but indicates that, in larger development situations involving multiple external stakeholders, a mismatch of adequate communication mechanisms can sometimes even hinder the communication.
M. Pikkarainen, Jukka Haikara, O. Salo et al.· Empirical Software Engineeri...· 401 citations· ⚡48
The results indicate that software engineering work practices are chosen opportunistically, adapted and configured to provide value under the constrains imposed by the startup context.
Nicolò Paternoster, Carmine Giardino, M. Unterkalmsteiner et al.· Information and Software Tec...· 394 citations· ⚡54
The perception of the impact of agile methods is predominantly positive, and several challenge areas were discovered, but based on this study, agile methods are here to stay.
M. Laanti, O. Salo, P. Abrahamsson· Information and Software Tec...· 260 citations· ⚡20
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