data-based decision making
Reflection
I worked with my team to develop this web site and accompanying content management system for VIIDAI, a non-profit organization wanting to market its good deeds to potential donors and create an online community for participants in the program. Working closely with the client and participants in the program, we conducted a complete needs analysis.
A needs analysis completed at the beginning of a project is extremely beneficial. Many times, the organization believes they know the best solution to a particular need, when in reality their needs might better be addressed in different ways. Also, through conversations and interviews with various stakeholders, we could involve a larger number of people in the design process. This creates a more satisfied group of constituents at the end of the project.
To complete our needs analysis, my partner and I began by meeting with the leader of VIIDAI project to discuss the needs of the project as a whole. In this meeting, he explained his general expectations for this project. Next, we interviewed various stakeholders for VIIDAI. These stakeholders included current and past students, professors, graduate students, coordinators from the three universities, and the main coordinator. By speaking with these stakeholders, we figured out the specific needs of that group of people as compared to the other stakeholders.
Through these discussions and meetings, we found that the goals, objectives, and values of this organization spread out among many people. We realized that each of the groups we spoke with had different needs, but many of them complemented each other. This allowed us to design a more appropriate site that would satisfy most stakeholders’ needs.
The most important thing we learned while conducting the analysis that we would not have otherwise known, was that the initial request by the organization for a static web page was not actually what they needed. My partner and I found that their needs stretched beyond that and we decided to create a dynamic web page for the company. The needs analysis allowed us to see beyond the organization’s initial statement of needs and reveal some of the underlying performance drivers.
During this analysis process, I learned that having many stakeholders can be a challenge. Each group has different needs and constraints that sometimes do not overlap. However, we as instructional designers must try to find the happy medium and create a product that will provide a solution to the most user needs. While this decentralized system did make it difficult to bring everything together, I believe everyone was pleased with the end result.
[Sample artifact by Dan McDowell, sample reflection by Kristina Killian]