| Business and Industry | Educational Organizations | ||
| Competent users (generally adults have the general aptitude and literacy skills necessary for their jobs) | Users with emerging competence (especially in primary and elementary schools, many users have emerging skills) | ||
| Predictable skills (technology planners can be sure they know the skills and competencies of groups in the workforce) | Unpredictable skills (planners cannot accurately predict the skills of users, and very different users may use the same systems on a regular basis) | ||
| At-will users (in business and industry, users can leave if there exists a difference between skills and needs) | Compulsory users (students are obligated to attend school, and school and technology leaders are required to provide appropriate educational service for all students) | ||
| Function-driven need (needs are determined by the task the individual is charged with completing) | Interest-driven need (students’ and teachers’ interest influence needs) | ||
| Known need (in business and industry, the needs of a user are usually clearly understood and the bounded) | Unknown need (the tasks completed on educational ICT cannot be reliably predicted) | ||
| Stable need (once a need is know for a particular user, or for the users fulfilling a role, the need does not change) | Unstable need (in general, the needs of users in the spring are more sophisticated than they were in the fall) |