Conduct User Analysis

1
Conduct User Analysis

• Website Design
• With handout UseNeedsAnalysis.doc

2
Research

• Before starting the analysis you should find out
  about
• The organisation, its background and business
• The department(s) or business areas that you will
  be working for
• The people you will be working with
• Possible solutions
• Prior knowledge of the organisation and its
  activities will help you ask appropriate and
  intelligent questions

3
Gathering Client/User Information

• In Website Design there are two groups you need
  to gather information from
• The Client who wants the website
• The expected users of the website
• The Client can give you their requirements
• You may need specialist information in order to
  fulfil those requirements

4
Gathering Client/User Information

• Identify all levels of users
• Users of a website can include
• External users the customers or those needing
  the service the website supplies
• Internal users - Managers for analyses to
  determine further strategies

5
Gathering Client/User Information

• You can question the Client by
• Meeting face to face
• Providing a survey
• The Client may suggest others you should talk to
  or survey
• The Client can provide some user information
• More strategies are presented in another Slide
  Show

6
Face to Face Meetings

• Can be one on one or round table
• Prior to the meeting, you should gather
  information about the subject to be discussed,
  for example
• Read your discussion notes from previous meetings
• Read the departments business plans
• Browse your file of articles from trade journals
• Remind yourself of any special terminology used
  by your client.
• Know the names, titles and relations hips of the
  people involved.
• Inform the Client of anything you need them to
  bring to the meeting

7
Face to Face Meetings

• Some pointers to successfully leading a meeting
  are
• You set the topic. Get them to talk.
• You listen and steer with pertinent questions
• Ensure everyone gets a fair hearing
• Do not let a few people dominate the session.
• Aim for consensus, but do not expect it all the
  time
• After discussion of a topic, summarise the
  outcome.
• Stick to the agenda
• Handle lengthy sidetracks by calling a separate
  meeting
• Stick to the stated timeframe clients are busy
  people.

8
Face to Face Meetings

• Remember to use open and closed questions
  appropriately
• Take notes as you go it is not usually possible
  to remember everything that is said
• The Client may even think you are not taking them
  seriously

9
Surveys

• Are the process of obtaining facts and opinions
  from a range of people
• Can be undertaken by
• telephone questioning
• written questionnaire
• personal questioning
• A combination of methods is often used
  successfully

10
Surveys

• Surveys are helpful if you want the views of a
  range of people and / or if those people are
  geographically dispersed
• They follow a very structured format
• Questions are carefully worded beforehand and
  asked in the same sequence
• some may be omitted depending on the responses to
  earlier questions.

11
Surveys

• The following points need to be considered
• Questions must be unambiguous
• Multiple choice answers must offer distinct
  choices where one of the answers can be selected
• Leading questions must be avoided example,
  tell me why you think the system is bad implies
  that the system is bad
• You need to include cross check questions to
  check the answers to earlier questions

12
Surveys

• A prepared questionnaire can be the basis for a
  face-to-face meeting
• It can be sent to the users in advance to assist
  them to prepare for the meeting
• Their answers can then be used for the basis of
  further discussion.
• You can prepare a set of questions to be asked at
  the meeting.
• In this interactive situation you can seek
  elaboration on answers, or ask further questions.

13
Determining Business Function in Relation to a
Website

• What business functions need to be represented on
  the site?
• How they should be represented?
• To assist representation
• Get to know the terminology of the business
• Gather sample forms (inputs) and reports
  (outputs)

14
Analysing Business Activities

• What data is used for this activity
• Where it comes from and goes to
• Why it is used
• How it is used and possibly transformed
• Who uses it
• When it is used and how frequently

15
Documenting Functional Needs

• For each of the business functions you have
  defined, you should
• Describe the function briefly
• Describe the data and where it comes from
  (inputs)
• Define the processes that occur on that data
• Describe the reports and other outputs
• The business function on a website must connect
  or mesh with the physical business function

16
Describing the Business Function

• Two or three sentences are usually sufficient to
  explain the purpose of the function
• A brief description is sufficient for providers
  of information technology solutions to understand
  what your requirements are
• In a Team Project you may not be the one
  implementing the IT solutions

17
Describing Processes

• You need to describe the major activity or group
  of activities
• This informs the supplier of IT solutions about
  the scope of the business function
• They can then map their product/expertise to
  website needs

18
Outputs

• The term outputs covers any report or form a
  user requires from the system, or any interface
  to other systems (such as a link to the head
  office accounting system)
• If the report is a standard output for this type
  of business activity, there is no need to define
  it the title is sufficient
• For each non standard output, you need to state
• Title, usage, purpose (in brief)
• Major data fields, sequence, page breaks
• How often it is needed, when it is needed (for
  example, at the end of each day)
• Urgency (wanted immediately or overnight)

19
Unusual Situations

• Most business functions are very similar across
  organisations in the same industry
• Sometimes you will meet a situation that is not
  standard
• If it is an important difference, and if there is
  good reason for the anomaly to remain, you must
  mention it in your report.

20
Other Considerations

• There are a number of other aspects that may be
  important, and need to be documented. They are
• Security
• Audit
• Backup
• Restore
• Data integrity
• Data and transaction volumes
• Processing cycles
• Predicted growth
• Archive and purge