The Work

The work is the business activity of your client/customer. Whatever this activity isselling shoes, controlling aircraft, administering a hospital, transmitting television signals, or any other form of activitythe automated product you intend to build is a tool that helps with the work. This product automates or streamlines some of the existing processes, or it changes the work by adding new capabilities. Either way, the product is simply a tool to help with the work. Clearly, it is imperative to understand that work.

Beyer, Hugh, and Karen Holtzblatt. Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems. Morgan Kaufmann, 1998. Beyer and Holtzblatt have some wonderful insights into work and ways that we should look at it. This book is highly recommended.