Summary
In this lesson, you have learned about the importance of Needs Assessment as a component of Geospatial Design & Analysis. Along the way, we have explored some of the methods used for Needs Assessment and how they can be tailored to the specialized needs associated with designing a GIS. There are quite a few choices to make, and many of them depend on the resources you can assign to this stage of design.
This week, we also covered the emerging technology trend of anthropological design. This approach to understanding users is an important one to consider, but not without its challenges for sure.
In the next lesson, we will shift from needs assessment to evaluating potential solutions. This is the next phase of GIS design where we will begin figuring out what to use to fulfill the task requirements identified from the needs assessment.
Tell us about it!
If there is anything in the lesson materials that you would like to comment on, or add to, feel free to post your thoughts in the General Questions Discussion Forum in Canvas. For example, what did you have the most trouble with in this lesson? Was there anything useful here that you'd like to try in your own work? While you are there, feel free to post your own responses and comments if you are able to help out a classmate.