value centered design
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user interface design methodology diagram

Strategic planning for web applications, if it is going to return the highest value for investment, must be based on three inputs:

user needs -- business goals -- IT capabilities

User Needs
The single biggest mistake made by companies – large and small – is that user needs are most often neglected, overlooked or their importance underestimated. As obvious as it is to say – users are the ones who will end up using the application – user needs should drive the development of the application. Yet this rarely happens. Why? For the most part it is because, users don’t control the process, they don’t understand the underlying technological issues, and they are often left out of the development process entirely. Tristream’s methodology relies heavily on user input – not merely at the beginning but throughout the development process. Tristream’s development teams are the user’s conduit for input and Tristream’s teams become the user’s champion.

Business Goals
Development of a new application for internal use is far more than creating new software. A new development project is an opportunity for a business to reshape its business practices, its workflow, and its relationship to end customers. Too often, business leaders within a company embarking on a new application development project, see it as an incremental improvement in existing systems and lose the opportunity to significantly improve productivity. Tristream’s strategic planning methodology and experience facilitate strategic thinking and clarification of business goals and practices to maximize return on investment.

IT Capabilities
No strategic planning process can return maximum value if it underestimates – or overestimates – the IT resources and technology that can be applied to the development of the application. Tristream’s teams have dedicated IT liaisons who are experts in display coding and who understand the limits the IT and serving environment impose on what can and can’t be done through web browsers. This dynamic relationship between IT staff and the Tristream team insures optimum response time, usability appropriate to the browsers supported, and seamless integration with back end systems.