From the many resources listed on the JA, we chose Scout to learn more about  because it's new, easy and useful in many ways. But I also had been interested in Sunlight's <a href="http://politiwidgets.com/" rel="nofollow">Politiwidgets</a>, developed in 2010, until I learned Sunlight's not really supporting those or developing those any further, in part because people wanted to work with them in a way they weren't exactly set up to work. I understand they still draw on current data, but that made me wonder: How do you, as a developer, learn from potential users what they want before you develop a tool?