72 PART | II ITS users
designed. The target user is not an individual. It is a segment of individuals that
share the same characteristics. According to Hudadof (2009), a key target user
profile should contain the following:
Who—who are the people using the product? (The different segments of the
population, their roles and responsibilities?)
Where—Where are the target users located?
What—What are their behaviors and values when using the product?
Why—Why are they using the product?
How—How do they use the product?5.5.5 Understanding user requirements
Having determined the users’ value proposition, the next step is to conduct
requirements design. Getting usable requirements means that we need to under-
stand the business. Every project should begin with understanding what the
product or service is meant to accomplish. We start interviewing the stakehold-
ers in order to understand their business. It is crucial for us to establish rela-
tionships with these stakeholders as early as possible. The following questions
should be asked in order to identify business requirements:
• What challenges do we face?
• Who will use it?
• Who are the important users?
• What do users need?
• What is the product?
The important thing in UX design is to identify what users want, that is, their
requirements. User requirements should not be guessed. They must be gathered
through user interviews, surveys, field or diary studies, etc. It is also important
to gather other requirements besides user requirements. These include: techni-
cal requirements, functional, and nonfunctional requirements. The functional
specifications outline what the product should be able to do. Nonfunctional
specifications describe how well the product performs, such as usability, perfor-
mance, data integrity, and maintenance.
5.5.6 Understand user mental model
Gentner and Stevens (1983) represents the structure and internal relationships
of a system defined mental model as a model evolving in the mind of a user as
the user is learning and interacting with a computer system. Mental models are
an essential component of our world because they help shape our behavior. Nor-
man (1986) argued that a strong or accurate mental model shows a functional
or spatial similarity to the system or to the image the system presents to the
users. Having the right mental model of the target users helps ITS designers to
develop a more effective ITS that will provide a positive experience to the users