Kujala, S. (2008). Effective User Involvement in Product Development by Improving the Analysis of User Needs. Behaviour & Information Technology, 27(6), 457-473.

Format: Peer-reviewed article

Type: Research — Non-experimental

Experience level of reader: Fundamental

Annotation: Careful attention to consumer needs can improve product quality and usability. However, consumer input should be gathered early in the product development process, and should involve a thorough examination of the end user's context and values. The author tests an information gathering and analysis approach in two case studies, which are detailed in the article. The proposed methodology resulted in a higher level of requirements quality, which in turn led to the generation of higher quality products.

Setting(s) to which the reported activities/findings are relevant: Federal lab, Large business, Small business (less than 500 employees), University

Knowledge user(s) to whom the piece of literature may be relevant: Manufacturers, Researchers

Knowledge user level addressed by the literature: Organization

This article uses the Commercial Devices and Services version of the NtK Model

Barrier: Field studies are often seen to be time-consuming, providing a vast amount of unstructured data that is difficult to use in development.
Case studies
Occurrence of finding within the model: Step 6.3

Carrier: To overcome processing problems that technically-oriented developers may have with processing written descriptions of user needs, present the information in the form of user-needs tables instead.
Case study
Occurrence of finding within the model: Step 4.11, Step 2.2, Step 1.1

• Use prototypes, mockups, or sketches to represent system structure when trying to focus a team on a user interface. Hiding the system structure behind the user interface details makes it easier to talk about the interface itself.
  Case study
  Occurrence of finding within the model: Step 4.11
• 6 main steps for identifying user needs, analyzing data and making use of findings: identify stakeholder and user groups, visit users and explore their needs, describe the current situation, analyze and prioritize the problems and possibilities, redesign the current situation, and define user requirements
  Case studies
  Occurrence of finding within the model: Step 4.11, Step 2.2, Step 1.1

• User-needs tables combine the two most essential representations of context of use- a task sequence and user problems and possibilities. Thus user-need tables repre3sent user needs to users' problems and possibilities and link them to a task sequence
  Case studies
  Occurrence of finding within the model: Step 4.11, Step 2.2

Tip: Effective user involvement has shown to yield a variety of benefits: 1) Improved quality of the system; avoidance of costly features that the user did not want or cannot use; 3) improved levels of acceptance; 4) greater understanding of the system by the user resulting in more effective use; and 5) increased participation in decision-making within the organization.
Case studies
Occurrence of finding within the model: Step 4.11, Step 2.2, Step 1.1

Barrier: Challenges in developer/user collaboration include: motivating the developers, identifying appropriate users, obtaining access to users, motivating the users, and deriving benefits from user contacts when established. (Case studies)
Occurrence of finding within the model: Step 3.1, Step 4.11, Step 2.2, Step 1.1