Tools for communication of customer needs and requirements

Question 1

Why is tools for communication of customer needs important?

Answer 1

• Support to compile all data from primary and secondary sources
• Transformation of inhomogeneous data into a format that customers and other stakeholders can validate
• Support to select appropriate methods for subsequent development activities
• Support to maintain user focus
• Direction for idea generation
• Input to the full requirements specification
• Criteria for evaluation of solution proposals

Question 2

To whom is the communication of customer needs aimed?

Answer 2

Management
Customer
Users
Stakeholders

Question 3

What different methods and tools can be used?

To communicate customer needs

Answer 3

• Problem formulation
• Mission statements
• List of customer needs
• Target specification
• Requirement specification
• Problem causing diagrams
• Mood boards
• User profiles
• Scenarios
• Stories, cases, games
• Concept descriptions
  etc

Question 4

What should be included in a problem formulation?

Answer 4

• Where and when is this problem relevant?
• How does it happen?
• What are the specific challenges in the context of the problem?
• Who could be the customer or user of a solution for this problem?

Question 5

What is a “mission statement”?

Answer 5

Summarizes the direction to be followed by the development team.

Includes

Product description
Benefit proposition
Key business goals
Primary market
Secondary market
Assumptions and constraints
Stakeholders

Question 6

What is a customer needs list?

Answer 6

Summarizes issues of interests to the customers and possibly their relative importance as well. Typically, the needs are expressed in the language of the customer

Question 7

What is a moodboard/imageboard?

Answer 7

A collage of materials, images, text, colors etc) that describes a context or a mood or a feeling. Mainly designer but also other utilize this in concept development for communicating different styles and characteristics to other involved in the process.

Question 8

What is “user profiles”?

Answer 8

Is an evidenced depiction of a user, often based on an explicit dialogue with the user. A further notion is to highglight information useful for the designer

Question 9

What is “a persona”?

Answer 9

Depicts an envisioned (faked) user or customer. (based on info of real user) Personas descriptions often include a photo, an illustrative quote, a background summary with facts about the user/customer, attributes and list of customer needs, and sometimes qoutation. Personas relevant for a sewing machine for example are a sailmaker, dress designer or environmental activist.

Question 10

What is “scenarios” ?

Answer 10

A scenario desciption, typically includes a story statement and actors. Thus, a persona is an appropriate ingredient in setting up a scenario. The scenario can be complemented with envisioned user needs, product features and user behaviors

Question 11

What does personas with evidenced content mean?

Answer 11

Fictional profiles of users bases on real informations from users. Can be generated from survey answers. Clustering methods of answers to identify different characteristics that make up personas.

Question 12

What are some other “not as commonly used” methods for communicating customer needs?

Answer 12

Comics, Stories, Games, concept and context descriptions, mock ups

Question 13

What different communication elements and styles can be used to communicate customer needs?

Answer 13

Text
Quotations
Metaphors
Symbols
Statements
Photos, videos, audio