Alternatives To User Requirement Gathering

Focus groups, customer feedback, questionnaires and the views of frontline staff all have a role to play in forming a usability strategy, but can they really replace formal 'user requirements gathering'.

Of all the disciplines that go together to create a 'usability strategy', user requirement gathering is undoubtedly the most frequently misunderstood. Many product managers or webmasters will believe that they already know their users, perhaps because they have conducted some form of market research, or have a formal complaints and customer feedback programme in place.

However, these techniques, discussed below, although similar in aspiration, should not be relied upon as a replacement for a full user-requirement gathering programme. That isn't to say that they do not have their uses of course, but rather that in terms of assisting in application or site design they can be unhelpful or even misleading.

Focus Groups

The focus group is a popular technique in marketing circles, one that is frequently used in the early stages of product design or specification. Typically a group of between 6 and 10 people are invited to discuss potential products or services, usually prompted by a series of carefully worded questions or statements. In this way a group enables potential users to voice their wants and discuss the features that they might like to see in new products or services.

The disadvantage of the focus group is that it depends entirely on what potential users say about their preferences and wants, rather than what they actually need in reality. These two things are often not the same at all, and if the group becomes dominated by one or two people it is possible to find that many stated opinions are merely the results of group dynamics rather than the real needs and wants of users.

In some instances this might be appropriate. These effects can be used to predict the response of the public at large to image changes for example. However, when judging how effective computer applications will be in meeting user needs, they render the results almost worthless.

Customer Feedback

Another frequently-cited alternative to requirements gathering is the use of feedback to garner the opinions of site or application users. This can take the form either of online feedback features, soliciting email communication, or customer surveys in the case of offline applications. When possible, feedback is acted on, thus 'improving' the product.

That is the theory. In reality these methods fail on two counts. Firstly, the sample is self-selecting and will distort the overall picture of user satisfaction. A small number of irate users does not necessarily demonstrate that an application has usability issues - especially if there is a large customer base. For example, the individuals in question may have misleading expectations of the application, which is more a matter for sales and marketing than product development and design.

Secondly, feedback is unlikely to give an accurate picture of ways in which applications and sites may be improved. Most importantly, the propensity of users to blame themselves will mean that many potential improvements are not reported. In addition, feedback is a poor way of revealing problems with the 'learnability' of a product or site - after all, if users are failing to discover areas of an application they will be unaware of what they are missing.

Questionnaires

As a final example, many organisations frequently ask for the assistance of existing customers in helping define products to meet their needs. This is often done through the use of questionnaires asking potential users which features they would like to see included in the product. The problems in this area are similar to those associated with focus groups - specifically users being unable to articulate their needs and distinguish them from 'wants' that may or may not improve efficiency and effectiveness in deployment.

As questionnaires are typically conducted remotely, they fail to give the type of insight into working environment that a full requirement programme will provide. There remains little alternative to field study and proper ethnographic research for companies serious about meeting user needs.