I was in a client meeting recently where we were discussing the progress of an MI tool we are developing. One of the client stakeholders, quite senior, was pretty pleased with the positive feedback the tool receieved from their customers especially because "we cannot judge people's expectations beforehand".
I assume to him we were pretty lucky to have developed a tool that meets their customers' expectations. In fact luck had very little if nothing to do with what is proving to be a successful forecasting tool. However, we can confidently argue that we owe this success to the User Centred approach we followed. This approach allowed us to do exactly what this stakeholder felt was impossible, that is, understand people's expectations, needs, behaviours, and goals.
Following a user centred approach we were able to question assumptions, simplify workflows, review functionality, and prioritise work. after all it is possible to "judge people's expectations beforehand" just observe, ask, compare, and undesrtand.
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