Design for end goals, not current preferences

The idea that “people can change” is an interesting concept. Common dating advice that I have received from my mom and aunts is that I shouldn’t expect a guy to change once they are past a certain age (around 23). In other words, men have developed their mental models, and I should not expect them to change unless they personally are motivated to do the hard work of changing them. I think as we become adults, we become pretty certain of our values in life, even if we can’t articulate them. The way we view the world is impacted by our environment, our culture, and the people we surround ourselves with. As adults, we become very comfortable in our mental models, and unless a major life event occurs, these models will not change without the person making a conscious effort to change them. What I think has the potential to change, however, is how we choose to fulfill and uphold those values in our lives. Throughout this journey, we involve product and service experiences to help us reach our end goal. Our likes and preferences can change wildly, but our core values will stay constant. As designers, we should be focusing on creating experiences that match user’s deep values, not fleeting preferences. Just like the analogy of users not needing a drill, but needing the hole, we should be designing for the user’s end goal, not just the present situation. If we articulate mental models for the way our potential users think, we will hopefully be able to get to the root of why people operate the way they do, and we will be able to design an experience that people can see value in, whether or not their preferences stay the same. Making the mental models is tricky, however, because everyone’s mental models are different, and only an individual can accurately realize their own mental model. Also, people’s internal mental models may cause them to act differently in different situations, many times in ways that designers cannot predict. I’m not sure that it is efficient, or even possible, to take into account every single different way that people alter their preferences or make choices in our journey maps, but as long as we try our best to represent the core values that users have, then we will be able to predict whether our experience will fulfill a user’s needs and values. And if a user does manage to change their values drastically, they may no longer be the kind of user that we are trying to serve.

Amy Zasadzinski