The Who and Why of Stakeholders
If you’re about to begin work on a project it is important that your first Understand the Work Domain. By understanding the work domain we can identify the different stakeholders involved with the project and then ask ourselves, “Why are they involved?”.
While it may be nice to know who is involved with a project, the most important thing for a developer is understanding why each of the stakeholders are involved. Developers need to understand the roles of all the different stakeholders in the work-flow of the application being developed. Only after you identify the users and the reasons for their involvement can you move on to Starting that Big Development Project.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; the best way to understand all your users is by creating personas during development. If you’ve never tried this method, give it a shot! You’ll be a much better developer because you will develop a better understanding of what your clients actually want!
As the developer, many design decisions are often left up to you. The clients like to tell you what they need, then hope to see you come back with it later. When you come back, these clients often like to then tell you what they really wanted and then ask for certain changes! While this is completely normal, you want to keep it to a minimum! By better understanding your users, you can have a clearer idea of how they may react to implemented changes.
Also keep in mind, user interface changes are one of the most commonly requested changes. It is therefore important to Understand the Goals of User Interfaces in order to make the best ones possible!
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