Analysis for Product Design
Identifying Needs and Desires
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Prof. David Bernstein
James Madison University
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| Computer Science Department |
| bernstdh@jmu.edu |
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The Phases of the Process
- Categorizing the Product:
- Categorize along different dimensions
- Identifying Needs and Desires:
- Identify/categorize stakeholders
- Elicit their needs
- Documenting the Design:
- Create the documents
- Check the documents
Categorizing Products based on Market Size
- Consumer:
- A large number of customers
- Niche:
- More than one customer but not "mass market"
- Custom:
Categorizing Products based on Features
- New:
- Different from anything else
- Derivative:
- Similar to one or more existing products
- Maintenance/Update:
- New version of an existing product
Categorizing Products based on Technological Novelty
- Visionary:
- New technology must be developed
- Leading Edge:
- Proven technology that isn't in widespread use
- Established:
- Widely used in other products
The Challenges of Identifying Needs
- The Product Type Matters:
- Consumer vs. custom
- New product vs. maintenance release
- Visionary vs. established
- Problems Communicating:
- The context is often complicated
- Ambiguities of natural language
- Omitting the "obvious"
- Different Stakeholders:
- People/devices who/that use the product to enter/input
information
- People/devices who/that use the output of the product
- People who administer the product
- People who support the product
- Others
An Important Heuristic
- Learn about the problem domain first
- You can't ask intelligent questions otherwise
- Remember that needs come from goals
- Try and identify the underlying goals of the stakeholders
if you can
- Use well-established elicitation techniques
- Don't always "shoot from the hip"
Elicitation Techniques
- Interviews
- Observations
- Focus Groups
- Document Studies
- Competitive Product Studies
- Prototype Demonstrations (and the resulting feedback)
Product Analysis Documents
- Problem Domain Glossary:
- The terms (and their definitions) that
are specific to the problem/product of interest
- Organization Chart:
- A hierarchical display of the positions
and reporting relationships in an organization
- Stakeholder Goals List:
- A catalog of important stakeholder categories and their goals
- Needs List:
- A collection of need statements, each of which documents
a single product feature, function, or property
desired by a stakeholder
- Each need statement must be identifiable/traceable
(e.g., numbered)
- Each need statement must be associated with one or more
specific stakeholders
Product Analysis in Context
- In Heavyweight/Non-Incremental Software Processes:
- Product analysis documents are created, validated,
and verified before resolution begins
(though there is often some iteration)
- In Agile/Incremental Processes:
- Few documents are created
- Analysis and resolution occur concurrently
Verification and Validation in Heavyweight Processes
- Correct:
- A statement is correct if it is contingent
(i.e., can be true or false) and accords with the facts
- In Scope:
- Can a need be realized given the project's scope
- Terminologically Consistent:
- Each word is used consistently
- Uniform:
- Similar needs are expressed in similar ways
- Complete:
- Contains all relevant material