Types of Users
From Requirements Management School
A typical software will have many different types of users.
It's very important to identify all the users of the software at the start of any software project . This is because all of their requirements need to be captured in order to produce a comprehensive requirements document.
Users can be grouped by looking at the characteristics of each user, for example:
- Features that they use
- Processes that they carry out
- Access privileges
- Experience levels
When thinking about who the users are, you need to look at the process from end to end as well as looking at any interactions with other software; processes; departments; and individuals.
A "user" does not necessarily have to be a human being - another system which integrates with the software being developed can be considered a user as well.
It would not be efficient to communicate with each user individually in order to elicit their requirements. So you must then go through the listing and group the different users that you have identified into groups. These new groupings should contain users that share commonality for requirements - along the lines described above.
One user can fall into different groupa depending on the role that they play at a given time. This is perfectly acceptable in the context of requirements development.
Each user group will have sets of requirements. Requirements from different user groups shall be given different weights at the requirements analysis and requirements specification stages.
