4 Knowing what people want

I remember how, long ago, several of the kids in my elementary school asked repeatedly why they had to study a subject they found boring. I was weird in that way: I never disliked a subject, so I never found it boring (except maybe phys ed), but those kids were the opposite. "Why do I have to learn math? I’m going to be an athlete." "Why do I have to study Arts? I’m going to be a cop."

Thinking back, I understand why they raised these questions; they thought they knew how their lives would turn out, so they ruled out subjects they thought were of no benefit to them. Life takes unexpected turns. I always thought that I’d have to choose between graphic design or psychology. Computers and data never even entered my mind.

By teaching those subjects in school, the educational system is not trying to bore kids to death. It’s preparing kids for the unexpected turns that their lives will inevitably take. Data usability is about the same thing. We need to prepare ourselves for all the different situations that can come up in the life of data. The best place to make those preparations is at the start of a data project, during the project design.

4.1  TL;DR

4.2  Designing data usability into the project from the start

4.2.1  Prioritizing needs manually and semi-automatically

4.3  Identifying and prioritizing user groups

4.3.1  Knowing your users

4.3.2  Prioritizing users by importance

4.4  Identifying and prioritizing situations

4.4.1  Identifying situations that may arise

4.4.2  Prioritizing situations

4.5  Identify and prioritize needs

4.5.1  Identify needs of users in situations

4.5.2  Prioritize needs of users in situations

4.6  Assisted prioritizing

4.6.1  User configuration

4.6.2  Situations configuration file

4.6.3  Prioritization of entities

4.6.4  Mapping the needs

4.6.5  Prioritize the needs