Further to my recent post on deriving who our target users are, in this blog post I have formulated this into a more ‘formal’ stakeholder analysis.
Later in the blog we will look at some Personas of the stakeholders we have identified. Personas are useful to give realistic, yet totally fictitious, representations to help get inside the mind of the person the system is being designed for.
The stakeholder analysis and the personas are very useful to the project, and will allow us to formulate requirements and plans for functionality that exactly meet the needs of the target user.
Stakeholder Analysis
- Primary Stakeholders – those who use the system
- Secondary Stakeholders – don’t directly interact but provide input or receive output
- Tertiary Stakeholders – are affected by the system
- Facilitating – People involved in the design and development
| Type | Stakeholder | Description | |
| 1 | Primary | Online Marketer | Online marketers will use the system to ask questions or to look for people selling services that they wish to use. They will not use the system to sell their own products to the public. |
| 2 | Primary | Seller of enabling services | These people will use the network to advertise their products, for example web design or call centre services. They may also help answer questions asked by the online marketers. |
| 3 | Primary | Community Moderator | A community moderator will either be an online marketer or a seller of enabling services. They will moderate the content of the network and will be notified of potential violations by other users. |
| 4 | Primary | System Moderator | The system moderator will moderate the content of the social network. They will have issues referred to them by community moderators. |
| 5 | Secondary | Trust Machine Developer | The system will be affected by user ratings given by the trust machine. A Trust machine developer will have to ensure the connection between the network and the trust machine. |
| 6 | Tertiary | Customer | If an online marketer makes a decision based on something they have gained from the network, the customers will be affected. This will either be because they buy the product based on the decision, or not. |
| 7 | Tertiary | Suppliers | The suppliers will have to supply more or less as a result of a shift in customer demand caused by the Buccaneer network. |
| 8 | Facilitating | System Developer | They are responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining the network. |
Because trust is context specific, and related to the amount of risk taken by the trustor, we will need to treat the online marketers and sellers of enabling services differently from a trust point of view. The plan for the trust machine is that it will only maintain one profile per individual and will verify individuals using other web identities.
I guess it should also be possible for an online marketer to also sell enabling services and vice-versa, so perhaps we need a way of differentiating these activities. How about ‘account modes’ ? this would allow us to alter trust ratings display depending on what the user is engaged in. It could also be a useful vehicle to manage moderators.