Many technology initiatives fail because they have been designed for users, but without their crucial input. Administrators are an important group of users who should participate in a needs assessment. Administrators generally need summary information at a broader level of detail than their staffs. For these participants, the summary information must be presented in a way that describes the organization's operations and informs decision making. Computer systems that help process detailed data also need to be able to generate these summary reports, so it is important to involve administrators when defining both what information is needed and how to use this information.
Instructional staff constitute another important category of users.
Their needs include having the ability to write lesson plans, develop interactive or multimedia learning activities for their students, prepare grade reports and record assignment data for specific classes and students. They may have ideas about how they can use technology to address the needs of their students. Still another category of users is the technical support staff . These are the persons who will be charged with supporting and maintaining whatever technology solution is eventually put in place. Their requirements are often of a different nature than those of users and administrators.