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does the (intended) product address the why?
Far too often one can lose perspective in the midst of the efforts to create a site. You can flat out forget
why you were building it to begin with. Or you begin to treat the consequences of your Why as the Why itself.
As an example, let us take a purpose like "providing an up-to-the-minute news resource for 'First Person
Shooter' video gamers." In the development of your planning, the audience for the site is identified as being
technologically
literate, "edgy," and in possession of short attention spans. In trying to address the audience, a considerable amount
of planning and development time is spent to produce slick Flash animation pieces to awe the audience and keep their
attention.
The identification of the traits of the audience is laudable, and highly useful information. The production of the
Flash pieces are probably well tailored to such traits. But what happened here was that the Why was forgotten and
the audience was addressed in isolation of other factors. The purpose of the site was to be a news resource, and that
purpose was forgotten.
As a disclaimer, let me say that if time was not of the essence, and human resources were limitless, the scenario
outlined above might not be detrimental. Time and money would still be available to address the main point of the site
and everyone wins. However, that is usually not the case, and the motivators of greatest importance should be dealt
with first, before you run out of time. Everything else is gravy.
So. As you progress through your "development cycle," keep referring back to The Why. Stop occasionally, and
re-evaluate your direction. You might find some drift.
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