3a. The
users of the product
Content
A list of
the potential users of the product. For each category of user, provide the following information:
User name This is most likely to be the name of a user group like:
schoolchildren, road engineers, project managers.
User role Summarizes the users' responsibilities.
Subject matter experience
Summarizes the users' knowledge of the business. Rate as novice, journeyman or master.
Technological experience
this describes the users' experience with relevant technology. Rate as novice, journeyman or master.
Other user characteristics
Describe any characteristics of the users that have an effect on the requirements
and eventual design of the product. Describe things like:
Physical abilities/disabilities
Intellectual abilities/disabilities
Attitude to job
Attitude to technology
Education
Linguistic skills
Age group
Gender
Motivation
Users are human beings who
interface with the product in some way. The role of the client is to pay for
the development of the product and the role of the customer is to buy the
product. The role of the user is to use the product to do work. You use the
characteristics of the users to define the usability requirements for the
product.
Examples
Users can come from wide,
and sometimes unexpected, sources. Consider the possibility of your users being
clerical staff, shop workers, managers, highly-trained operators, general
public, casual users, passers-by, illiterate people, tradesmen, students, test
engineers, foreigners, children, lawyers, remote users, people
using the system over the telephone or Internet connection, emergency workers,
and so on.
3b. The
priorities assigned to users
Content
Attach to each category of
user a priority rating. This gives the importance and precedence of the user.
Prioritize the users into:
Key
users.
These are critical to the continued success of the product. Give greater
importance to requirements generated by this category of user.
Secondary
users.
They will use the product, but their opinion of it has no effect on its
long-term success. Where there is a conflict between secondary users'
requirements and those of key users the key users take precedence.
Unimportant
users.
This category of user is given the lowest priority. It includes infrequent,
unauthorized and unskilled users, and people who misuse the product.
Percentage of this type of
user this is intended to assess the amount of consideration given to this
category of user.
Motivation
If some users are
considered to be more important to the product, or the organization, then this
should be stated because it should affect the way that you design the product.
For instance, you need to know if there is a large customer who has
specifically asked for the product, and if they do not get what they want then
the results could be a significant loss of business.
Some users may be listed as
having no impact on the product. This means that the users will make use of the
product, but have no vested interest in it. In other words, these users will
not complain, nor will they contribute. Any special requirements from these
users will have a lower design priority.
3c. User participation
Content
Where appropriate attach to
the category of user, a statement of the participation that you think will be
necessary to provide the requirements. Describe the contribution that you
expect this user to provide business knowledge, interface prototyping,
usability requirements etc. If possible, assess the minimum amount of time that
this user must spend for you to be able to determine the complete requirements.
Motivation
Many projects fail through
lack of user participation, sometimes this is because the required degree of
participation was not made clear. When people have to make a choice between
getting their everyday work done and working on a new project, the everyday
work takes priority. This requirement makes it clear, from the outset, that specified user resources must be allocated to
the project.