Understanding User Behaviors and Patterns

Study the people who will use your portal. Factors such as when users will use the portal and how users have used predecessor systems are keys to identifying your requirements. If your organization’s experience cannot provide these patterns, you can study the experience of other organizations and estimate them.

Use these questions to help you understand users:

• How many end users will you have? What is the size of your target audience?

• Will users login to the portal at the same time each day? Will they use the portal at work or somewhere else?

• Are users in the same time zone or in different time zones?

• How long do you expect the typical user to be connected, or have a valid portal session open? What use statistics do you have for existing applications? Do you have web traffic analysis figures for an existing portal?

• How many visitor sessions, or number of single-visitor visits, are likely within a predefined period of time?

• Is portal use likely to increase over time? Or stay stable?

• How fast will your user base grow?

• How have your users used an application that the portal will deliver to them?

• What portal channels do you expect users to use regularly?

• What expectations about your portal content do your users have? How have users used predecessor web-based information or other resources that your portal will offer?