Creating for an audience

We've been continuing our work on Produsage #2 (as I'm sure every read but one is doing, though of course she has to evaluation each one). One of the biggest hurdles is one that I believe almost every website or web tool developer has to faced The predicting and planning for how users will use a site, and what they expect. Of course, the inherent nature of web 2.0 lends it to evolve over time to fit the needs of the users. Like a great analogy written in the text, it is like a garden that is created, with natural paths being created where pedestrians actually work. Only then are sidewalks installed where these natural paths form.
Unfortunately, you cannot just hope that users will show up and make use of a site or tool, thereby resulting in the desired natural paths to form around. Some planning and forethought is required. This (eventually) brings me back to our work on prod. #2. There are discussion boards (DB) as well as a wiki, awaiting population by hoards of visitors. Our soon-to-be hoards, however, do need some direction and some pointers for where to begin if they wish to stay longer than to just get a cursory glance. We have been debating the best way to organize the current DB topics, as well as the terminology to be used for categories, both in the wiki and the DB.
Odds are there are degrees or certifications one can earn for the predicting and planning of how users will use a web site. I'm sure that any large company has consultants for how the psychology of internet users can best be used to keep visitors at a site and make full use of its resources. I wonder about the big differences in how one plans for a static web site (like say, the site for Coca Cola) as opposed to a more dynamic, web 2.0 website (like a most interesting, useful, fun, and overall excellent site such as our project).
In the end (especially for a time-sensitive project such as ours) you do what you can with what you have, and try to at least put down a minimal groundwork for visitors to work with. In our attempts to take a latent community and mature it into a 'real' online community, hopefully we've put together a decent place for students to visit, and that with some work and time it will continue on beyond this course.