Understanding user requirements in context: A case study of developing a visualisation tool to map skills in an engineering organisation

We provide a case study of understanding the environment and work context of a visualisation tool used in a collaborative engineering organisation, in order to inform the design, development and evaluation of a software network tool that uses a novel algorithm to search knowledge topics in a document corpus. We utilise focus group and qualitative interview data to understand the dynamics of existing knowledge searches and the visual analytics process of collaborative working environments in an engineering domain. We discuss the enablers and functionality needed in the network tool, and the envisaged challenges in its implementation. These challenges and enablers of a knowledge management visualisation software are then discussed in relation to evaluating the tool in a way that is grounded in the contextual working environment in which it will be used.