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Collect Needs from Existing Evidence

People already describe their problems, expectations, workarounds, and frustrations online. Your task is to find such evidence and turn it into candidate needs for your project.

Your Task

  1. Search for relevant statements in forums, reviews, articles, blogs, Stack Overflow, documentation, product interfaces, public issue trackers or similar games and projects (for example, if you are building a virtual pet game, explore existing Tamagotchi-like applications).
  2. Create one GitLab issue for each distinct need in your own project. Use the need issue template.
  3. Preserve the source as an exact quotation and include either a direct link or a screenshot. A finding without verifiable evidence does not count.
  4. Interpret the statement as a clear, preferably solution-neutral candidate need. Pay attention to subjective transformations: how the user's personal perception, emotion, or frustration shapes their expressed need.
  5. Group your collected needs based on how they impact user satisfaction. You may use the Kano model categories as labels.
  6. Add the need label.

A source does not have to discuss your exact project. Indirect and general needs also count when their relevance is concrete. For example, a complaint about repetitive actions in another tool may matter to a UI-heavy project, while a discussion about remappable controls may matter to a game. Statements such as “users need a good UI” or “games need good controls” are too vague.

Use comments and issue references to improve a need, add supporting evidence, or identify related and duplicate findings. Later, these needs will be used to create requirements.

Indirect UI Need

Issue title: Change several related interface settings without repeating navigation

“He has to trigger the menu once again for the next toolbar.”

Source: FreeCAD issue #17974

Candidate need: Users configuring a UI-heavy application need to change several related settings in one flow without repeatedly reopening the same navigation.

Why it is relevant: The source is about another tool, but it provides concrete evidence about interaction cost that may also matter in our UI-heavy project.

General Game-Control Need

Issue title: Adapt controls to the player’s device and preferences

“Controls for multiple games are completely off. Would be nice to be able to remap them.”

Source: Nintendont issue #569

Candidate need: Players need controls that fit their device and preferred input scheme.

Why it is relevant: The statement is not about our game, but it describes a specific and common game-control need.