Re: The audience doesn't know what it needs was: RE: What is "wellWritten"?

[JLShaeffer -at- aol -dot- com]

What is frequently going on, is that the users know what they need, but  they 
have not been able to express their needs in a way that makes  sense to the 
developers. 
 
Simple hypothetical example: 
Users and developers agree on a list of the buttons and tools that should  
appear on a screen in a user interface. The first time that the users see a  
sample of the screen, they can instantly tell you two or three essential items  
that are missing from that screen that were not on the agreed-upon  list. It's 
not that the users were "too stupid" to notice the gaps in the  list. The mind 
just works differently when confronted with an  abstract list compared to the 
actual implementation.  
 
The only answer seems to be multiple iterations (even with the best tools  
for early communication). If multiple iterations while the software is  being 
developed is what is meant by multiple testing, then I agree. If you  mean 
testing after the code is frozen, I don't agree. 
 
 
Jim Shaeffer
 

On  5/16/07, Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> wrote:
I don't know
how  low the level of knowledge of the average SW user is, not being in that  
business, but for the products I've worked on, when I encounter people  who 
express the view that the users don't know what they want  or need, it usually 
just turns out that the the users have a pretty  good idea what they want and 
need and the people who think they don't are  developers and/or product 
managers who have simply not taken the  time to find out.





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