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Which one of the following is right/ better. I am still not sure after thinking about it for quite a while now. I am talking about the needs of multiple users. The first option (s´) is used when talking about possessions. If I would translate it one-to-one from German then it would be the first option, but I am not sure if English speakers would prefer the second option. Thank you very much.

  1. Research has shown that incorporating feedback into the whole lifecycle can lead to a system, that is better tailored the users’ needs.

  2. Research has shown that incorporating feedback into the whole lifecycle can lead to a system, that is better tailored to user needs

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    Those are both ungrammatical for lack of to following tailored.
    – tchrist ♦
    Nov 4, 2019 at 14:01
  • Your title and sample sentences ask something different. In the title should the second component be 'user needs' without the 's' on user? If so, both are correct.
    – S Conroy
    Nov 4, 2019 at 14:13

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Either of the two would be correct. 's-apostrophe' is not confined to possessions in English. It is sometimes thought of as a possessive genitive, but this has nothing to do with possessions in the sense of chatels. Girls' boyfriends are not their possessions, or so I should hope. Nor are girls' hopes and ambitions.

In the context you provide, however, my sense of the language is that your second sentence is now the standard way of saying it, even though I personally detest it. I see it as the use of a noun as a kind of adjective-by-insertion. But it is now standard English.

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