Rethinking Target Audiences: UX Evolution towards Individualizing
From Personas to Targeting with Future AI Revolution: Navigating the Evolution of UX Targeting
When I studied at the university for 4 years in Marketing, I heard every day that “You can’t target everyone; when you target everyone, you’re targeting no one.” Okay, I agree, but this is true for traditional businesses or perhaps e-businesses up until the 2010s, but thinking like that today is dangerous.
I’m not suggesting that your TAM has to include all 8.1 billion people in the world. Often, companies fail because they don’t understand that. There are also numerous cases where a company’s SAM and SOM are so limited that VCs aren’t interested in investing. Our role in startups is increasingly important. As UX Designers, our ultimate goal is to clarify the target audience and design specifically for them. We’re designing for the specific individuals who interact with our product, not ourselves or everyone. Each user is a unique individual with their own goals, needs, emotions, skills, etc. In the past, we’ve relied on various user understanding methods like personas, customization, etc. While these methods had their benefits, they fail to fully understand the needs and preferences of individual users. Luckily, the trend is moving towards narrower targeting of users and with the upcoming AI-generated user interfaces, we might finally achieve true individualization, where each user is treated as a unique individual.
Minority Rule and Law of the Few
Recently, reading Nassim Taleb’s “Skin in The Game” book, I came across a cool idea. He talks about how the way things interact is more important than looking at them individually. For that, one needs to understand an ant colony as an ant colony, no less, no more, not a collection of ants. One concept Taleb discusses is the Minority Rule.
Taleb explains this using the example of the Kosher population in the United States, representing less than three-tenths of a percent of the total residents. Why?
A Kosher (or halal) eater will never eat nonkosher (or nonhalal) food , but a nonkosher eater isn’t banned from eating kosher.
Let us call such minority an intransigent group, and the majority a flexible one. And the rule is an asymmetry in choices. It would be vastly more likely that these values emerged from a minority than the majority. Outcomes are paradoxically more stable under the minority rule — the variance of the results is lower and the rule is more likely to emerge independently across populations. The entire growth of society, whether economic or moral, comes from a small number of people. Society doesn’t evolve by consensus, voting, majority, committees, verbose meetings, academic conferences, and polling; only a few people suffice to disproportionately move the needle. All one needs is an asymmetric rule somewhere. And asymmetry is present in about everything.
Many companies are focusing more on sustainability programs nowadays. They’re realizing that it’s not just good for the environment, but it’s also good for their own company. You see, if companies don’t show they care about the environment, they risk losing support from environmental groups. These groups might stop buying their products, or they might even protest or take legal action against them for not doing enough for sustainability. So, when a company emphasizes sustainability, it’s not just appealing to those who are concerned about environmental issues (a minority), but also to people who don’t prioritize environmental concerns as much (a majority). And those companies that just stay neutral? Well, they’re definitely missing out on customers who care about environment.
Another concept that I want to note from the book called “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell. This book has been around for about 24 years, but some ideas are still relevant. Besides the Law of the Few, Gladwell also talks about two other key factors: The Stickiness Factor and The Power of Context, which you can read in the book.
The Law of the Few is the idea that some people in society carry a much greater potential for making something go viral. Gladwell defines it like this: “The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts.”
Gladwell identifies 3 main groups of people necessary for an idea to spread. So, when you’re thinking about who you wanna target with your idea or product, it’s important to keep these kinds of people in mind. They can really help make your product spread.
- Connectors are individuals with a vast social network, who can bring people together and create new relationships.
- Mavens are information specialists who love to share their knowledge and expertise with others.
- Salesmen are charismatic individuals who have the ability to persuade and convince others to buy into an idea or product.
He gives examples to understand the importance of viral marketing. One such example is the resurgence of Hush Puppies shoes in the 90s, where a few kids in the East Village in Manhattan who just started wearing them and suddenly everyone wanted them.
So, what does this mean for startups and their target audiences? Think of Airbnb. Instead of going head-to-head with big hotels like Hilton or Marriott, Airbnb went for a smaller group first. They aimed at people who wanted cheaper and unique places to stay while traveling. These audiences are the kind of early adopters and trendsetters who are open to exploring new ways of traveling.
By focusing on this niche minority group of adventurous travelers, Airbnb built a strong community of both hosts and guests. These early adopters became like Connectors, Mavens and Salespeople. So, focusing on the right niche can really make a huge difference for a startup.
Curb Cut Effect
Taleb’s approach is like to the “Curb Cut Effect, which famous in design.
The Curb Cut Effect describes how designing for disabilities can lead to improvements that benefit everyone.
For instance:
- Closed Captioning: Originally for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Now, everyone uses CCs. Such as it used by language learners, people in noisy environments or those watching content without sound.
- Ramps and Elevators: Initially, it implemented to provide accessibility for people with mobility impairments, but they’re now helpful for parents with strollers, people with luggage or anyone with a temporary injury.
Personas
In the 80s, Alan Cooper proposed the concept of a “persona,” but it wasn’t until his 1999 book, “The Inmates are Running the Asylum,” that it became mainstream within the tech community.
Personas are fictional characters based on research, embodying different user types likely to use your product.
They are separated as primary, secondary and if necessary, complementary categories. Typically, there are around 3–5 personas with identified characteristics though the number can vary depending on the product’s complexity and the diversity of its user base.
Take Uber, for example, which focuses on two primary user groups: Riders, who use the ride-sharing services and Drivers, who provide the rides. The same goes for eBay serve two main categories: Sellers, who list and sell products and Buyers, who purchase them. Both sides make the platform work.
Personas may also vary concerning accessibility considerations. For example, people who have hearing difficulties can’t be prioritized in the same way as people who have dyslexia. Recognizing this, it’s common to define several personas, each representing a distinct user group. Typically, one of these personas is designated as the primary persona and any conflicts in design decisions are resolved with this persona in mind.
Customization
When companies understand customer-centric approach importance, came forward “customization” term.
Customization refers to the action of modifying a product or service to fit a user’s preferences or requirements.
Nike lets us design our own shoes with “Nike By You” picking colors, materials and texts. If A/B testing isn’t helping you determine the best app icon or color scheme, don’t worry. You can suggest many options. Many apps like Discord, Reddit and Telegram follow this practice.
It sounds great, but customization may be effective for businesses like Nike or other clothing stores because people like to stand out from the crowd. However, the situation slightly differs for us UX designers in another cases. Personally, I tend customizing almost everything I use. But I’ve noticed many people around me don’t. Some are unaware of that opportunity (many friends ask me “Wow, how do you do it on your Mac?” Although their using Mac many years, they act like that is miracle) others are adaptable, while some are lazy, and so on. Regardless of the reason, very few seem to take advantage of these opportunities.
This problem is not only beyond my social circle. There is plenty of research that provide that people stick to the default options. For instance, Microsoft teams investigated how many Word users changed the settings of the program. Attention! more than 95% of users retained the program’s default settings without making any change.
Personalization
Ever feel your phone reads your mind? That’s personalization.
Personalization is all about adapting an experience to fit the user, while customization is about giving the user control over their experience. Personalization is controlled by the computer, while customization is controlled by humans. This means personalization can be used in a lot more situations than customization.
A great example is Target’s use of a Guest ID number, that help them found out that a customer was pregnant before she even told anyone.
Similarly, Apple Music suggests songs based on listening habits, and Amazon’s algorithm recommends products based on past purchases. I sometimes fear opening Amazon. Their recommendations are just ideal and whenever I use Amazon, my “wish list” becomes a mile long :)
Personalization can also be dangerous in the case of social media. Imagine only seeing news that confirms your existing beliefs, never challenged by different perspectives. That’s where confirmation bias appears and your world shrinks.
So, is personalization a hero or villain? While it can be helpful, it also has downsides. Sometimes it suggests things we’re not interested in at all, which can be annoying (often Apple Music or Apple TV). Plus, there are worries about privacy — some people aren’t comfortable with companies knowing so much about them. These are affected a bad user experience. Personalization works best when it’s clear about what each user wants and has accurate info about their preferences.
Nevertheless, according to a McKinsey study, 71% of consumers expect personalized interactions from companies.
Vertical vs Horizontal Markets
Things change, methods adapt. So, let’s understand what’s happening now and the challenges startups face in finding the right people to sell to.
I’ve noticed a lot of discussions suggesting that companies with a horizontal strategy might not really solve their customers’ main problems. Because of this, VCs tend to refuse to invest in such companies. In the past, focusing on a specific market niche could really pay off big time. It’s also true that in the early stages of startups, it’s often best to target a smaller group of customers. But lately, it seems like companies are moving to horizontal strategy.
Vertical growth is like specializing: the company focuses on becoming the absolute best at serving a specific group of customers within their existing market.
Horizontal growth is like diversifying: the company expands its offerings or enters new markets to reach a wider audience.
Ever notice how when a cool startup gets popular, suddenly a big company creates a similar product? They think, “Hey, we have tons of users already, why don’t we get into the game?” These big companies may offer similar products for free or suggest them with existing apps plans to gain a competitive advantage. But it doesn’t always work.
Take Figma. It launched in 2016. It was awesome and Adobe released their own app, Adobe XD, in 2017. We designers want to use Photoshop and Illustrator, and Adobe sell $20.99 each or we can pay $52.99 for Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps. So we will have all Adobe apps including XD. By employing this strategy, it seems like a surefire win, right?
Wrong. XD didn’t overtake Figma. In 2023, XD was discontinued and Adobe focused on acquiring Figma (a common strategy for large companies, for example Meta). However, following mounting pressure from regulators in the UK and EU, Adobe and Figma announced that both companies are mutually terminating their merger agreement.
So, why did Figma succeed? It wasn’t just because of its excellent product; it also had the right focus on its target audience. It started with designers, but the user base expanded over time, particularly after the introduction of FigJam in 2021 and AI integration in 2023. Today, I know marketing managers, product managers, content creators and so on who aren’t designers but use Figma regularly.
Consider Slack, launched in 2013. Google saw its success and launched Google Chat in 2017. Even though Slack is arguably a better product, Google Chat eventually has more users, simply because it is integrated with the rest of the Google ecosystem.
Another example is Zoom. Recognizing the competitive threat posed by platforms like Microsoft Teams, to stay ahead, Zoom is working on becoming all-in-one-software. This means adding new features like noise cancellation (so you don’t need an extra app like Krisp) or a digital whiteboard (app like Miro). Despite Zoom’s excellence in video conferencing, it’s understandable that they might fall short in other features (e.g., Krisp, Miro, etc., are better), leading to a bad user experience. On the other hand, Microsoft has the resources to develop separate apps for each function. They’ve been employing this strategy since 1975, selling their software apps to companies, thereby maintaining their market dominance.
There are also numerous examples where famous companies incorporate features into their apps that have been successful for other apps:
Tik Tok — Youtube Shorts, Instagram Reels
Waze — Google Maps
Snapchat Lenses — Instagram/Facebook Filters
Periscope — Facebook/Twitter (now X) Live
Clubhouse — Twitter (now X) Spaces
Startups are having a rough time these days. The rise of AI is empowering big companies to become smarter and faster than ever. Attracting AI engineers has also become more difficult, as game changers like OpenAI can easily attract them. Along with that, companies will have to go horizontal. Figma was able to compete because they knew at the right time to tap into the will of a large audience. Seems like the old way of focusing on the primary persona won’t help. In the future, all personas must be considered primary to ensure competitiveness or FAANG will eat us whole!
In football, Spain’s Girona has been performing great this season, raising hopes of winning La Liga. However, when they met their direct rival a few days ago, Real Madrid won 4–0. No matter how good we are, there are moments when we need superhuman strength to compete against the giants.
Maybe AI could be that superpower?
I’ve mentioned how AI can strengthen big companies, but what if individuals could also use that power? Just recently, Sam Altman shared his vision of the concept of a “solo unicorn company” during a interview with Alexis Ohanian. That’s a radical idea and it would’ve been unimaginable without AI.
As we already understand, personas aren’t enough for an optimized user experience. Customization and personalization, both methods, also have their weaknesses. Perhaps individualization be the solution in the future?
I remember reading about this concept in Harari’s book back in 2020, and it now seems even more real. Already, there are startups developing technology that can detect human emotions based on eye and facial muscle movements. In the future, imagine adding a high-quality camera to your device and such software could determine which scenes made us laugh, which made us sad and which bored us. Connecting the algorithm to biometric sensors could allow it to measure how they influence our heart rate, blood pressure and brain activity. Sometimes, we laugh at a joke that isn’t funny so as not to look stupid. Our brains and bodies act different when faking it. Humans can’t usually distinguish the difference. But a biometric sensor could. Sometimes, we decide to watch a movie because everyone hypes it, but when we watch it, we find ourselves yawning. What if an algorithm could understand us perfectly and suggest the best movies based on our emotions? Or recommend music that resonates with us the most at that moment? Or suggest the best life partner based not only on beauty, intelligence or other similar characteristics, but also on our true compatibility? Cool, right? It might seem like it’s a long way off, but those times will come soon.
What does this mean for design? While current generative AI may be too slow to produce UI in real-time, further advances in AI could make real-time updates available in the near future.
Imagine a scenario where generative AI creates a unique interface for each user, also taking into account marginalized groups (such as providing an audio interface for the blind). Algorithms could fully understand the user and offer the most suitable design. Carvana, for instance, has already generated 1.3 million unique AI-generated videos for their individual customers. Although this is not the future I are talking about, it shows the potential of AI technologies moving forward.
References
Nicholas Nassim Taleb discusses Minority Rule in Chapter 2 , “The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority,” of his book “Skin in the Game.”
Malcolm Gladwell discusses The Law of the Few in Chapter 2 “The Law of the Few,” of his book “The Tipping Point.”
To grasp the difference between Customization and Personalization in User Experience, check out this article.
When I was writing this article, Jacob Nielsen published a new article. After reading it, I noticed some similarities. As a result, my article can be seen as supporting of his perspective.
Yuval Noah Harari discusses biometric sensors in Chapter 3, “Liberty,” of his book “21 Lessons for the 21st Century.”
