Oracle7 Server Application Developer's Guide
Assessing Needs
The first step in designing a usable application is determining what problem you are trying to solve. It is important that you do not focus entirely on the data, but rather on how the data is being used. In designing your application you should try to answer the following questions:
- Who will be using this application?
- What are they trying to accomplish by using this application?
- How will they be accomplishing these tasks?
You should involve the end-user as much as possible early in the design phase. This helps eliminate problems that can stem from misunderstandings about the purpose of the application. After you gain a better understanding of the tasks that the end-users of the application are trying to perform, you can then determine the data that is necessary to complete these tasks. In this step, you need to look at each task and decide:
- What data must be available to perform this task?
- How must this data be processed?
- How can these results be meaningfully presented?
- What are the potential future uses of this application?
It is important that your audience has a clear understanding of your proposed solution. It is also important that your application be designed to accommodate the changing needs of your audience.