Officially

From the publisher, in order, with its history intact.

Government Digital Service gov.uk

Define user needs

Imported from official source

Point 1 of the Technology Code of Practice (TCoP) explains how you should identify who your technology decisions affect, and how to use that insight to shape effective technical choices.

When you make a decision about the technology you use, this choice affects other aspects of your service or programme. Most importantly, it affects groups who are often invisible during delivery. These include:

  • support teams who keep the service running
  • teams who will integrate with or reuse what you’ve built in the future
  • anyone who uses or engages with your service, even if they do not interact with the technology behind it

    • Understanding your users’ means that decisions about technology and architecture are based on evidence about who is affected and what those users need.

    Not understanding your users’ leads to technical debt and the creation of unsupportable systems. This means that any later decisions about integration, purchasing or decommissioning you make will inherit problems that would have been avoidable.  

  • you can name all of the specific groups affected by your technology decision, which  include support teams, operations teams, and any teams likely to integrate with or rely on what you build 
  • you have evidence, not assumptions, of the operational and technical needs that shape your architecture
  • your technology choices can be traced back to a specific identified user need
  • you have identified where introducing or changing technology creates risk for people who depend on it, and have factored that into your delivery plan 
  • apply at every major technology or architecture decision point, and not only at the start of a project
  • be defined through lightweight checks if you are implementing small, well-understood change - a full research exercise isn’t needed every time  
  • reflect current operational and support needs for legacy systems, rather than trying to reconstruct historic use

    • This is an extract. The publication continues at the source.

    Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Licence

    Read the original at the source: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/define-user-needs

    Officially imported this from Government Digital Service’s own source and shows an extract. If you work there, claiming the profile and verifying the domain lets you choose to show the full text here.

    Provenance

    Organization
    Government Digital Service — imported from official source
    Official source
    https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digital-service.atom ATOM
    Imported
    October 29, 2026 10:00
    Versions
    1 recorded
    Identity
    https://www.gov.uk/guidance/define-user-needs#2026-10-29T09:22:08Z

    Officially records where a publication came from, not whether it is true. Imported records are reproduced from an organization's own official source.