The holidays are almost over, time to get started on the New Year. So what do I have in the pipe for usability this first part of the year? You guessed: Agile Usability.There is a big move in agile development. The flexibility it provides and tight integration with the customers give benefits like early and continuous delivery, stability, and reactivity to changes. However in most agile processes there is one big factor missing - Usability. And without usability the risk of failure is as big as ever.However, examining agile processes, its fast paced iterative way of doing things actually fits usability. Usability is truly a process that benefits from rapid iterations. And I think that with some tweaking the usability process would fit perfectly within agile methodologies.However, for the basic knowledge of the user there are no "agile" specific methods, you still need to do your homework. The essence of usability is still to get to know the user and understand the basic goals and needs of the user. This is as basic as knowing what you are trying to accomplish with the application in the first place. You don't just sit down and think, "Hey, how about writing an application, we can figure out what it will do as we develop it! We're agile."One methodology (or more correctly collection of methods) that is spot on for agile usability is Guerrilla HCI/Discount Usability Engineering introduced in '93 by Jacob Nielsen. You can read about it in his book Usability Engineering or at Useit.I will continue to update on my findings and experience in this area but for those who would like to get jumpstarted I recommend the reading at the Agile Usability user group.