Heuristics: Goal-Path Analysis
A heuristic is a concept that can often be helpful in solving a problem. The goal-path analysis is a simple concept that you can use to analytically control your own creative process. The idea behind the goal-path analysis is that the creative process describes a path in the question-data-model triangle. The goal of a creative process is considered to have been achieved when data, model and goals agree well enough and the number of deviations has become small enough. The pursuit of some physicists for a unified field theory to optimize scientific knowledge shows that achieving the goal is always individual.
- Data is measurable information or facts from reality.
- Model stands for theories, ideas or even prejudices that help to put the data of reality into context.
- Goal stands for my questions or goals that drive me to want to better understand and change the world with its facts.
Heuristics see the limitations of human memory as an opportunity by formulating the rule of edge optimization: "of the three aspects, you can only change a maximum of two at a time in one process step; the third aspect remains unchanged."
For example, when comparing your data with your model, you discovered that your model cannot explain some facts, although your data must be taken into account because of your question. Then, in a next creative step, you could try to either generalize the model or modify the question. As the model is generalized, its relevance for the objective could change. The same applies if you change the objective. Then the relevance of a model could become irrelevant, so that it has to be removed from the target-model-data triangle. The art of this creative process lies in actually throwing overboard things that you have grown fond of and recognized as irrelevant, which is often the hardest part of the creative process. In the sense of Magaret A. Boden (The Wings of the Spirit (orig.: www.amazon.de/Die-Fl%C3%BCgel-Geistes-Margaret-Boden/dp/342330457X - Creativity = Overcoming one's own limits) this can be understood as the actual step in the creative process.
Transferring the goal-path analysis to a simple example
Your goal: You are a manufacturer of electric razors. I would like to find new target groups for my existing products.
Your data: You have functioning electric razors that are well established in the market segment of inexpensive discounters. Your sales figures and price-technology comparisons with competing products are available as data
Your model: Customers' purchasing decisions are influenced by price. It is the discounters in particular that advertise their electric razors in their advertisements.
The goal should be kept constant. The model that reduces the purchasing decision to a price decision should be modified.
- => Antithesis thesis: The purchase price plays a subordinate role in the electric razor.
- => It is known that the discounters advertise the electric razor from time to time
- => Specific antithesis: The advertising commitment of the discounters plays a role.
- => Data collection: Sales figures must be collected in such a way that the efficiency of advertising campaigns can be measured.
- => The data analysis shows that regular advertising has an influence on sales figures.
- => Because advertising has been identified as a significant factor for sales figures, the next step is to specify the goal.
- ...
Using goal-path analysis to reach new target groups and customers - heuristics for target group analyses
Heuristics for modifying models
Over the course of my life, I have come across many heuristics for modifying models, which often proved to be good sources of inspiration. Frequently recurring features include the use of associations to give details a new context or visualizations to place details in a larger context. The following list is intended to show some examples of methods and makes no claim to completeness or systematics.
Heuristics for lone workers
- - Concept of thesis and antithesis: Every statement can be negated. You negate the statement, as in the example above, the argument about the purchase decision based on price. This can then quickly lead to thoughts that illuminate alternative aspects.
- - Lexigraphic exaggeration through synonyms: For every term there are terms that have similar statements but are often used in other contexts or with different meanings. The means of exaggeration is used here for the process of creativity. In electricity, the river becomes electricity. Synonyms would be stream, trickle, canal, power channel. The sentence "Shipping uses the river for freight transport" produces different images in the mind with "Shipping uses the trickle for freight transport" (image of the limited capacity limitations) or "Shipping uses the power channel for freight transport" (image of expandability) or "Shipping uses the canal for freight transport" (image of control by canal operators), which can lead to new ideas.
- - ChatGPT: You can also be inspired by ChatGPT (an artificial intelligence [AI] available online). AI (artificial intelligence) works according to a similar principle to the above concept of synonyms. Since today's AIs are based on large training data sets, you can generally only expect to be presented with a solution from the mean of the training data. It can happen that you come across findings that no one has explicitly formulated before. The advantage is that you can enter into a dialogue with the AI. It can be tedious that the AI invents an 'idea' that you later have to discard as nonsense (similar to brainstorming).
- - Thinking from different points of view/storytelling: This method has become known in the IT sector under the synonym "storytelling". You put yourself in the situation of a stereotypical person and ask yourself what this person would expect and how they would act in certain situations. This thinking can be helpful in recognizing new aspects or key points in a model. But it can also be abstract. A list is a list of items. What is a list from the point of view of the items? For an item in a list there is always a predecessor and/or a successor; an item alone does not make a list.
- - Who does what, when, where, how and why?: These questions are answered in the first paragraph of a well-written journalistic article. Similar questions can also be found as questions of principle or as 5W1H method/Kipling questions (What? When? / Where? / Who? / Why? / How? ) This method aims for an unbiased analytical approach. The many questions reflect an analytical approach that is limited to details. The W questions can be helpful in identifying implicit assumptions or limitations in the model. It is more of a technique for error analysis than for thinking up new ideas. But many new ideas are actually just slight corrections to previous ideas, which is why the technique remains important.
- - Analogies or lateral thinking: With this technique, you look for examples that are similar. The creative process is about thinking up new solutions more quickly by changing the situation. You can ignore logic for once and think laterally or crosswise to avoid mental blocks. It is helpful to concentrate on a specific feature and look for associations with it. These can be surprising or exaggerated, as long as they help you to leave the beaten track of thinking.
- - Associative and other techniques: In addition to the lexigraphic method or lateral thinking mentioned above, there are many other associative methods with many different names from many different developers from different fields of knowledge. Since the aim here is not to create a systematic overview, many heuristics are only suitable for specific areas of application.
Heuristics for creative developments in groups
- - Brainstorming: The various brainstorming techniques rely on the interaction of people in order to get as many associations/keywords on a topic as possible. In the second phase, the ideas are sorted and anything inappropriate is discarded. For a question or anti-question, all participants should quickly write down their associations on the topic for everyone to see. The associations of others can inspire the participant to new ideas. The resulting collection can then be discussed in order to filter out the appropriate associations.
- - Broadcast Search: This means the general search for suggestions for improvement across a broad group. It can be interesting for large companies, for example, for the search for innovation. The aspect of intellectual property rights is problematic here. The basic concept is to make the number of people involved as large as possible. There are many other methods that try to make use of the diversity of different people's thoughts.
Special heuristics for systematic creative processes
- - Copying, competitor analysis: Remember, creativity is overcoming your own limits. In this sense, copying, copying successful actions, analyzing the competition is an effective way to increase your own creativity. The successful competitor shows that he is doing a lot of things right. Use your competition as a source of inspiration to better position yourself on the market.
- - Schulz von Thun's communication model: In the context of models that involve communication between people, it can always be helpful to look at the different levels of communication separately. Here is an example: An advertising slogan such as "Advancement through technology" wants to communicate with the potential consumer. According to Schulz von Thun's model, the above message can be examined on the four levels of factual content, self-disclosure, relationship aspect and appeal. In factual terms, this means that a competitive advantage is achieved through technology. Many will agree with this factual statement and the slogan is good. The slogan indirectly conveys the self-proclamation that the advertiser would like to be the market leader in the technical competition. From an appeal perspective, the slogan implies a competitive spirit. Aesthetes will therefore not feel particularly addressed. The slogan is more likely to be aimed at the relationship aspect, to attract customers who, like the company itself, want to compete with others through better technology.
- Big Five or Limbic Map®: This personality type-oriented method can be used particularly in the field of marketing and brand development to develop or further develop new ideas. The Big Five is called the standard model for the typifying description of personalities. The basic idea behind the Big Five was the idea that personality traits are also reflected in language. In a large-scale study, people assigned themselves to certain terms that describe certain aspects of their personality. Statistical analysis then shows that certain terms were often always mentioned or not mentioned at the same time, and personality was thus narrowed down to five large, independent groups of traits. These groups are
- Openness to experience (open-mindedness, curiosity to conservatism, caution),
- Conscientiousness (perfectionism to flexibility, spontaneity),
- Extraversion (sociability; extraversion to loner, reserve),
- Agreeableness (consideration, willingness to cooperate, empathy to aggressiveness, competitiveness) and
- Neuroticism (emotional instability and vulnerability to stoicism, relaxedness and calmness).
In the marketing area, the Big Five in the Limbic Map® are reduced to three groups, which are said to be based on known physiological reward systems (Neuroticism = balance/adventure, Conscientiousness = stimulation/control, Openness+Agreeableness = fantasy, enjoyment/dominance). The advantage of the Limbic Map® over the Big Five is that the more detailed collections of terms are more easily accessible on the Internet, so that you can more easily use the Limbic Map® term clouds as a stimulus for your own creative process. Since the psychological standard model of personality covers five aspects and the Limbic Map® only three, the question arises as to whether the factor analysis in the standard model is wrong or whether there are still unknown physiological mechanisms that determine personality development. In the sense of goal-path analysis, this question is important because at some point you have to collect data and you also want to explain the data in models. Incorrectly collected data leads to incorrect models and incorrect goals, as can be seen from the example of the climate change debate. (I consider the claim that carbon dioxide is the main driver of climate change to be an empirically and experimentally unprovable overestimation based on a false correlation in the statistics. Accordingly, in my view, some goals in climate policy are nonsense, even if the dependence on oil due to peak oil urgently needs to be reduced and our fundamental economic structure needs to be changed.)
- - Mind maps, concept maps, diagrams: A mind map forces terms and simple theses into a hierarchical order. Various sub-terms are derived from a main term or a main question, from which further sub-terms are derived. With concept maps, on the other hand, you create a network of points that are each linked to one another. Such overviews make it easy to recognize connections that can help when thinking about certain aspects. In diagrams, numerical values of two measurable quantities are related to one another. The principle of this method for increasing creativity is based on: "A picture is worth a thousand words". There are many other names for techniques with certain graphic visualizations for certain areas of application. Examples include UML (= Unified Modeling Language is useful for representing data structures and process flows), scribbling (= drawing sketches is useful for developing user interfaces for websites or layouts) and statistical graphics (these are useful in the field of controlling or for forecasts, for example in market development). The list is not exhaustive. The distinction between graphics for analytical purposes and graphics to increase creativity is fluid. It is always helpful for the process of creativity that graphics and maps can provide an overview of highly complex topics if the graphics are well designed and structured.
- - Storytelling / persona stereotype analysis: I got to know storytelling or working with personas in the field of software development. In order to develop a suitable user interface, you first describe which user personalities you expect for the program. You then formulate stories that describe how the personas deal with the program and what expectations they have. Since we can better imagine people and their actions as abstract characteristics, this method is very helpful when developing or optimizing program processes and when discovering important program properties. Analogously, you can of course also use personas to develop stereotypes for your existing maximum of five customer types. In the creative process of goal-path analysis, you then have different ways of proceeding.
Analytically, you could consider...- which customer groups are missing and which of them you could address,
- what additional needs the customer groups might have,
- which services offered none of the customers are likely to need,
- where, how and with what additional customers of the personas found could be addressed,
- whether you even want to address certain groups of people for cost reasons,
- ...
Small selection of sources on the topic of systematic techniques for promoting creativity
- General https://www.itonics-innovation.de/blog/effektive-ideenfindungs-methoden
- General https://www.forschung-und-lehre.de/karriere/methoden-zur-ideenfindung-steigern-kreativitaet-2402
- General https://blog.hubspot.de/marketing/kreativitaetstechniken
- Schulz von Thun - communication model https://www.schulz-von-thun.de/die-modelle/das-kommunikationsquadrat
- Mind-Mapp (Open Source) https://docs.freeplane.org/
- Concept-Map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_map
- Limbic-Map® https://nymphenburg.de/limbic-map.html
Pages point to German websites.
Target group analysis – a completed or continuous process?
Acquiring new customers is a creative process that can affect many aspects. It can affect the way you address customers, it can affect changes to service offerings, it can affect the way you view the customer, it can affect product design, it can affect the creation of a marketing process, it can affect positioning in the market, etc. There are so many aspects that need to be taken into account. Acquiring new customers requires you to change yourself or the company. (Popular wisdom: trade is change. - And creativity is overcoming your own limits.)
There are many guides on the Internet that, from the perspective of the Big Five, court conservative consulting customers in particular with slogans such as “11 steps to new target groups”. The heuristics of the goal-path analysis show, however, that there are many and not just one rigid path that always leads to the goal. Acquiring new customers is more of a continuous cyclical process that oscillates between the end points of recording/adapting and reflecting. After each reflection, you decide again whether you want to turn to the goal, the model or the data as the variable to be changed when recording/adapting and whether you want to end the oscillation process. Ending is a good idea
- if the result is sufficient or
- if you have lost your mindset (writer's block, blockage of creativity).
As you can see from the previous explanations, the goal-path analysis is a continuous process that may eventually become exhausted or that you may need to pause. The instructions or descriptions for a systematic target group analysis that can often be found on the Internet can be a partial step in this process. Use the links below as sources for your own inspiration.
The goal-path analysis is therefore a continuous process.
Some example sources for step-by-step target group analyses
B2C target group analysis (for large groups, more than a thousand potential customers)
- www.unternehmerjournal.de/zielgruppe-finden-ratgeber/
- blog.hubspot.de/marketing/zielgruppenanalyse
- www.meltwater.com/de/blog/zielgruppenanalyse
- blog.hubspot.de/marketing/zielgruppenanalyse
- www.borgmeier.de/zielgruppe-definieren/
B2B target group analysis (for medium-sized groups, 100 to 1000 potential customers)
- www.marketinginstitut.biz/blog/zielgruppen-definieren/ (contains examples of focusing on small B2B groups)
B2G target group analysis (for small groups, fewer than 100 potential customers, you should look for personality analyses because an individual approach is necessary)
- personalitycheck-online.com/persoenlichkeit/wichtigste-personlichkeitsanalysen-im-vergleich/ (The variety of methods in this source shows that psychological analyses are always extremely normative or: "My question determines my objective results in my view of the world. Your objective results may be different."
- www.sabine-hahn.com/post/pers%C3%B6nlichkeitsanalysen-im-coaching
- https://www.heckner.com/wissen/warum-manche-menschen-sie-wahnsinnig-machen/
All links lead to German-language pages.
Insert on the attitude effect - stopping the search for new target groups
In the course of a creative process, it can happen that you simply start to experiment or that you repeat work that you have already done. This is then a sign of the so-called attitude effect. You get stuck in your own experience and cannot find a way to overcome your own limits in the pendulum process. The methods mentioned above for increasing creativity also fail under the attitude effect. If you reach such a point, then stop the creative process. Take a break. Do something else. This is the only way to give the incubation a chance to come to light. Some thought processes take time - (my guess: because your brain has to restructure itself slightly in a slow process of growth and elimination).
During this time, you can devote yourself to other topics, such as optimizing internal processes.
- Or you can focus on promoting company cohesion.
- Or you can focus on the differences between your products and the competition's products.
- Or you can simply go on holiday.
- Or...
If your creative process stalls and you're just poking around unsystematically, then stopping is more effective than continuing. Give your brain a chance to adjust to the new circumstances by slowly growing into the new requirements. Growth takes time.
A few example sources on the attitude effect in German
Target group analysis from the perspective of goal-path analysis
Depending on the starting point of the question, a target group analysis will have to be carried out in very different ways. In the following sections, two hypothetical case studies are played through. The specific procedure always depends on your individual goal, your model and your data. There is no fixed procedure for target group analysis using the heuristics of goal-path analysis. In the examples constructed below, only the next step is always indicated. The examples show how differently a problem could be approached. Even the examples could be solved in a different way, because everyone solves their challenges differently. In the end, however, everyone wants to achieve their goal, which can be individually different.
Possible approach: Search for a new target group in the B2C area for the existing cargo bike product
In this example, the customer to be advised produces cargo bikes, which are bought in particular by parents to transport their children. The cargo bike has an electric motor for power support. The heading already describes the specified goal for the target path analysis. A new group of buyers or new target groups should be found for the cargo bikes.
To start the target group analysis, several joint brainstorming sessions are planned at different times with/for the client. For one of the sessions, the cargo bike product should continue to be used to transport children, but for new groups of buyers among parents. In preparation, the customer begins to systematically collect `data` on the existing customer structure according to demographic criteria. Demographic criteria could be, for example, the following:
- Age (either specific numbers or age groups such as 18 - 25)
- Gender (male, female, diverse)
- Languages used
- Place of residence (country, federal state, city or even zip code)
- Education
- Occupation
- Marital status (single, single parent or married)
- Number of children
- Income (including Hartz4 or pension)
In order to check whether the current buyer group is limited to certain groups with some of the following psychographic characteristics, an attempt is made to record some of them as well
- Religion
- Values and political orientation
- Sexual orientation
- Lifestyle
- Attitudes and opinions
- Interests and hobbies
- Personality and behavior
Since it is known that the vast majority of buyers are rather well-off, economic aspects such as the following are not taken into account.
- Price sensitivity
- Purchase motives
- Purchase frequency
- Brand preferences
- Use of products/services
- Decision-making processes when purchasing
- Places of sale (store, shipping, house parties, ...)
However, information on which channels the previous target groups knew about the manufacturer of the cargo bikes is also important. Problems or needs that the target group has and for which your company can offer solutions.
- Media usage
- Use of technology
- Online behavior
- Social media usage
- Presence on digital platforms
Such data, such as the communication channels above, are difficult to determine validly from surveys. Feedback from the sellers is required here. An evaluation app is being developed for this, where the sellers of selected dealers can leave information and assessments after a sales talk. (Dealer discount in exchange for information) The most important source of information, the feedback from customers during the sales talk, is often overlooked when analyzing target groups. The app also records free text
- with information from customer reviews
- with suggestions for improvement from customers
- with information from customer feedback and
- with information from customer experiences.
There are various methods for collecting such data. The Delphi method, i.e. questioning the sellers, has already been mentioned. You could conduct online surveys or surveys linked to a competition. You could also offer a bonus program to encourage customers to give feedback and make suggestions for improvement. You could use tracking services such as Google Analytics, Matomo or similar on your own website. To prepare for the brainstorming session, you would describe the existing target group using personas.
The preparation is actually more important than the actual brainstorming session because it encourages the cargo bike manufacturer to listen to its customers and reflect on its previous target group. This actually provides the impulses that are then generated during the brainstorming session.
According to the principle of thesis and antithesis, in a second brainstorming session you could look for user profiles who use the cargo bike for something other than transporting children. The core of the brainstorming session here is the question of what you could and would want to transport with a cargo bike other than children. Such a session does not require a lot of preparation time because it is about describing different transport goods.
After reflecting on which customers might be attractive as new target groups, the next steps should be to determine or estimate the size of the target groups. This would require research and further work. Further brainstorming sessions on other topics would also be conceivable. For example, you could think about the disadvantages of cargo bikes (customer feedback during sales talks) or additional offers (customer requests during sales talks, repairs). Another important task that can easily be done online these days is comparing yourself with the competition. Here, the competition should not be defined too narrowly. Comparing with the competition can give you clues as to how you need to change your cargo bike product to be of interest to other customer groups.
What is important in all of this work is that the cargo bike manufacturer overcomes its own limits and gains new insights and, if necessary, adapts its product and/or services for the new target groups. When reflecting on the target path analysis, it is important to keep reducing the results to just a few key statements, because the human brain or human thinking can only process a small amount of data at a time.
The example presented was deliberately kept general so that you can derive your own checklists for your own target path analysis; because ultimately, the core of the creative process controlled in this way lies in overcoming your own limits.
Possible approach: Creating new target groups in the B2C area for existing products and/or inventing new products
The goals formulated in the heading in this second short example seem to be really different, because one speaks of new target groups and the other of new products. Both goals have a lot in common, because new target groups almost always force the reinvention of an existing product. The goal-path analysis could therefore begin with reflection in order to consider how an existing product would have to be modified or reinvented for a new target group. In addition to special functional-technical properties, aspects such as the reinvention could also be taken into account, such as:
- Color
- Shape, design
- Packaging, sales presentation
- Haptics
- Advertising channels
- Sales channels
- Services related to the product
- Documentation, descriptions
- Special additional products
When reinventing, you can now take two different paths. You could adapt the product and focus on its function. Then you would first consider what changes you could make to the product. As in the first example, it is necessary to record the current situation. The methods mentioned above could be used for this. If, on the other hand, you want to find new target groups for a product, you should start by asking yourself how your product is actually perceived in the market. To do this, you could, for example, analyze your own brand presence using the Limbic Map® concept (concept clouds traced back to physiological reward models in the brain, easily accessible) or the Big Five concept (concept clouds based on the standard model of personality, difficult to access). A core part of the analysis of your own brand presence is the text analysis of your own documents with which you present yourself to the public (advertising, social media channels, newspapers, etc.). Based on the brand assignment, you would then consider how many people could be reached with alternative brand positioning. In this context, an analysis of the brand positioning of the competition would also be helpful. In the sense of the goal-path analysis, this work counts as data collection.
In a joint meeting, you would compare the competition with your own product and look for differences. Depending on the decision about the direction in which you want to develop, you would then take further steps as part of the goal-path analysis. If you want to improve the product or additional services offered, you would have further meetings with the technicians. If, on the other hand, you want to adapt the brand image for new target groups, you would work with the marketing department.
Sources for target group analysis
Targets mainly in German or English.
- Target group analysis: https://marcel-schrepel.biz/zielgruppe-kompakt-demografische-merkmale/
- Target group analysis: https://marcel-schrepel.biz/zielgruppenbestimmung-10-tipps-zu-kriterien-methodik/
- Target group analysis: https://www.lexoffice.de/lexikon/zielgruppenanalyse/
- Target group analysis: https://www.meltwater.com/de/blog/zielgruppenanalyse
- Persona analysis (English): https://www.qualtrics.com/en-gb/experience-management/product/buyer-personas/?rid=ip&prevsite=de&newsite=uk&geo=DE&geomatch=uk
- Overview of text analysis software: https://www.zonkafeedback.com/blog/text-analysis-tools
- Online tool text analysis software OpenSource: https://voyant-tools.org/ and https://github.com/voyanttools/VoyantServer
Example of one of my goal-path analyses
The goal-path analysis is a heuristic and not a fixed product defined by rules. This concept is particularly important for longer-term developments in order to keep a project running. An example of the paths that can be taken with the goal-path analysis would be my TYPO3 extension 'timer'. ( https://extensions.typo3.org/extension/timer )
The extension realizes my long-held goal of displaying periodically recurring content on my website. I was initially inspired to achieve this goal in the sense of the goal-path analysis by a pub that regularly held a full moon party and a customer who wanted to see vouchers published on his website regularly before Christmas. My first attempt at implementation was the hard programming of the periodic repetition with Javascript for the customer mentioned and with TypoScript (important configuration language for TYPO3) on my own website. When reflecting on the goal-path analysis, I later rated both approaches as not good because the code and data were mixed together and because the code was therefore difficult to use in other new projects.
The goal then changed again because now a generally usable solution was also to be sought. In a second approach, I then developed an extension for TYPO3. When defining the recurring appointments, this took the user guidance for periodic appointments in Microsoft Outlook as a model (creativity through copying). I tried to implement an analogous concept in the extension for TYPO3, but as development progressed, the code became more and more complex and confusing. I then threw the extension away halfway through because I realized that I could not easily implement periodic appointments such as full moon, Easter, sunrise and the like with the concept. Since I couldn't get any further (creative blocker), I left the problem alone for the time being.
When I thought about it again later, I realized that my approach to implementation (model in the sense of goal-path analysis) was wrong. This time I had to change the model. The idea arose that I actually needed a functionally simplified extension that only took care of publishing a certain content provided by TYPO3 on a certain date. The question of how this periodic date is calculated was outsourced in the new model, so that it had to be dealt with in a separate class.
Outsourcing gave rise to the now leading idea for the extension `timer`, in which the calculation of the times of periodic dates and the output of content were separated from each other. (I am still very happy with this idea.) A lot of new data in the sense of the goal-path analysis was created for the extension `timer` because many new classes were programmed with which, in addition to the typical dates such as `every Wednesday`, `every first Monday of the month`, ..., you could also define many atypical periodic dates such as Easter, Mardi Gras, sunrise, moonrise, full moon, school holidays defined in CSV files or various other holidays. A date calculation class was also created that removes the forbidden dates from an active series of dates. Use cases for this date calculator class would be periodic dates such as `every Tuesday except during the holidays` or `every Monday except on public holidays`.
At this point in the development, when I reflected on the current status, my goal changed again (in the sense of the goal-path analysis). Because demand for the extension was rather low, I also wanted to offer a calendar function for appointment calendars in the extension. So I looked at how other extensions for TYPO3 solved the problem; but that didn't help me much because the extension worked with different data structures than my `timer` extension. But I adopted the concept of using existing JavaScript libraries to display calendars from them. This resulted in many different data processors that were intended to make it easier to reformat data structures so that the data from the database could be provided in a format that the JavaScript libraries could also process.
With these data processors, too, I had to take various development steps in the sense of the goal-path analysis until I finally came up with the `phpMappingProcessor` that was satisfactory to me. This version now allows for easily configurable remapping from any array structure to any other structural array structure, while maintaining the goal of general validity, code simplicity and simplicity of configuration. For this, too, I went through several pendulum phases of collecting data (= programming) and reflecting on it (= writing documentation) in the spirit of the goal-path analysis before I finally arrived at the ultimately satisfactory structure.
I am currently considering modifying my goals again and returning to the original idea (extension only for periodic output of content). This would simplify the documentation, I could throw away a lot of old, complex code. The function of the extension would become clearer. I would then have to consider how I could make the idea of periodic content on a path page more palatable to my colleagues. The goal-path analysis process for the extension is therefore still in full swing, even if I am currently investing little time in further development.
Abbreviations
- AI = software for generating an artificial intelligence that is difficult to distinguish from a human and that can generate text, images or videos in dialogue.
- B2B = business to business (sales to companies / trade with companies)
- B2C = business to customer (sales to end users / trade with end users)
- B2G = business to government (sales to the government / trade with the government)
- CSV = Comma separated values. The format describes the way in which data from a table can be easily saved in a text file. A line describes a line in the table. A comma or another character separates the contents of the table cells from each other and longer texts containing commas are usually separated by quotation marks or other characters.
- IT = Information Technology
- TYPO3 = Name of a well-known open source software (content management system)
- UML = The Unified Modeling Language offers standard notations for process and data diagrams, which are roughly divided into three main groups: behavior diagrams, interaction diagrams and structure diagrams.
- W-questions = This means all important questions whose question words in German begin with a W. (Who does what with whom, for whom, how and with what, for how long, where, when and why?) In German, all important question words begin with W.