QuestionsToAskYourCustomer

Before Design" by Donald C. Gause and Gerald M. Weinberg.

• Who is the client for this product?

• What is a highly successful solution really worth to this client?

• What is your real reason for wanting to solve this problem?

• How much time do we have for this product?

• What are the trade-offs between time and value?

• Where else can the solution to this problem be obtained? Can we copy

• What problems does this system solve?

• What problems could this system cause?

• What environment is this product likely to encounter?

• What kind of precision is required or desired in the product?

• Do my questions seem relevant?

• Is there anything else I should be asking you?

• Is there someplace I can go to see the environment in which this

• Is there anything you want to ask me?

• What can you tell me about other people (stake-holders? developers?

• Are you the right person to answer these questions?

• Are your answers official?

• May I write down your answers and give you a written copy to study and

• Can we get together and clarify some points?

• Is there anyone else who can give me useful answers?

• Should we use a single design team, or more than one?

• Who should be on the teams?

• When I asked A about this, she said Y (and you said X); do you have

• Is there anybody we need on this project that we don't have?

• Is there anybody we have on this project that we don't need?

Plus a few more questions...from cKeithRay

What features or attributes for this product are required by law? Standards? Preferences?

What requirements do/don't apply to this/that market segment?

What (un)finished products is this product like?

What features of this product were also tried/removed from previous products?

What's missing in a previous product that this one should do?

What features are considered for this product, that don't work in a previous product?

What groups of people have had problems with products similar to this one?

How is the user to correct (his own/others') errors?

What features are missing in this product? How is the user to do without them?

What acceptance tests for other products are applicable to this one?

What could happen if someone used this product for immoral purposes?

What if the user is impaired in sight, hearing, or another communication medium?

What if the user is not an English/YourLanguage speaker? Not Literate?

What if the user is multi-lingual and wants to use multiple languages with this product (at the same time / one at a time)?

What happens when the user selects the (in)correct commands?

What happens if the user is not authorized to use certain commands?

What happens if the user is confused by the interface?

Besides normal usage, what happens in event of abnormal but reasonable usage, abnormal and unreasonable usage?

Any questions to add which you've found useful to ask?

³host³³date³January 3, 2002³QuestionsToAskYourCustome ³³agent³Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)³QuestionsToAskYourCustomer