Users and developers are typically from different worlds, may even speak different languages, and have different backgrounds, motivations, and objectives. Communication gap between user and the developer accounts for the fact that understanding user needs remain one of our largest problems.

The problems are the following:

1. Users do not know what they want, or they know what they want but cannot articulate it.
2. Users think they know what they want until developers give them what they said they wanted.
3. Analysts think they understand user problems better than users do.
4. Everybody believes everybody else is politically motivated.

The solution:

1. Recognize and appreciate the user as domain expert; try alternative communication and elicitation techniques.
2. Provide alternative elicitation techniques earlier: storyboarding, role playing, throwaway prototypes, and so on.
3. Put the analyst in the user’s place. Try role playing for an hour or a day.
4. Politics is part of human nature, so let’s get on with the program.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 21st, 2008 at 4:56 pm and is filed under Requirements.