Reverse-Engineering Requirements From a Prototype
A prototype is the best tool there is for discovering what people need, and the worst possible way to record it. The step almost everyone skips is turning what the prototype revealed back into traceable requirements. Do it, and the prototype's learning survives; skip it, and you ship the mock-up's accidents as if they were the plan.
An earlier piece in this series argued that prototyping has become the primary way to gather requirements, because people reveal what they need when they react to...