The challenge is to understand the community needs. On the one hand, we want to listen to what the users in the community say, but on the other hand, what they say is not necessary what they want (Figure 2).

Figure 2. The challenge when listening to users (Sierra 2005)

Kotler (1997) has presented a useful taxonomy of consumer/user needs:

1. stated needs
   • The customer wants an inexpensive car.
2. real needs
   • The customer wants a car whose operating cost is low.
3. unstated needs
   • The customer expects good service from the dealer.
4. delight needs
   • The customer buys the car and receives a complimentary road atlas.
5. secret needs
   • The customer wants to be seen by friends as a value-oriented savvy consumer.

It is to understand the fifth category — the secret needs — that we have created the community model and it's social processes. We call these secret needs community needs, since we don't think they're secret, because when asked directly, the user would probably agree and not think it's a secret. Instead we want to highlight that many of the needs have a social background and can be understood with the help of for instance Strauss' community subprocesses. In the example above, for instance, we can reflect on what value-oriented and savvy means from the perspective of social comparison (see Organisational dynamics and fashion). Generally it can be said that most of the "really" (secretly) wanted issues have their background in social comparison and social questions in general. It is precisely these social aspects that the model supports to be realized systematically.

Furthermore it can be worthwhile to consider Kotler's other distinction between needs, wants, and demands. For instance, the user needs food, wants a hamburger and has the money & opportunity to buy it (demand). In the Habbo case this could be that the user needs to be approved by his peers, wants to create a cool room to show the others, and creates a demand for furniture by asking his mother to transfer some money in his virtual Habbo purse.

By mikael at 2006-02-23 16:27