Users come first

Let’s imagine that you have a client, and you, as a company, must develop a project for them. The deadlines are met, the project is delivered, but the end customer does not use the result.

Why?

If it has happened to you before, you need to read this post.

The final users who use a product have different ways of consuming it. In reality, not everyone will find a product that they need to use more than once. But then, why was the project or product approved with the previous requirements?

A common mistake is “thinking for the user,” believing that the way you design your product matches its final use. This communication issue generates discontent from the user, and you could even lose your client.

How do we keep users happy?

It’s simple, by asking!

We can help ourselves with the Design Thinking methodology, which focuses on the user. The main idea is to start with the user and their needs, not only the basic ones but also their desires and motivations.

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Design thinking’s key elements are empathy, detecting opportunities, proposing solutions, and making tangible ideas.

Empathy: the first key to Design Thinking

You must understand who your user is and their needs, not let your common sense decide.

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To empathize with the user we must explore their context and make qualitative research analysis:

1. Observe the user. A straightforward approach to understanding their behavior.
2. Be the user. If you watch the user without their knowledge, you get an experience closer to reality.
3. Talk to the user. In in-depth interviews, make sure that the user feels comfortable. These are not surveys!

To cover your users’ entire behavior, you can start by interviewing extremes, including occasional and constant users. Then you can continue with the expert users: people who already have experience and help you by giving feedback and thus understand the insight.

Some tips for an in-depth interview:

• Show your empathy in your presentation: Avoid an authority posture since it can generate an emotional and intellectual disconnection. If you are talking to an expert user, you can address them as expert consultants in user experience.
• Break the ice: Start the interview with easy to answer questions (name, age, how’s the traffic?).
• Be specific for your needed data: Formulate some of your questions for clear answers (When was the last time you purchased our product?).
• Identify insights with open questions: Let the user explain their interactions (How was your last experience?)
• Closing: Thank them for their time.
• Listen carefully: Document everything with photos, videos, or audio.
• Ask them to interact with your product: As I said before, observe the user (Show me how you use the product or service).
• Avoid “emptying the brain”: This widespread technique tends to interpret information to make it compatible with our theories, beliefs, and convictions. We filter information that contradicts our vision.

How many people to interview?

In qualitative methodology, you need to reach the point of theoretical saturation, that is, until you find patterns in the answers. To optimize resources, some experts consider that interviewing five people is enough.

This article by Jakob Nielsen proves it mathematically:

• In the first interview, we get only new data.
• In the second interview, we get repeated and some new data.
• In the third interview, we get repeated and a minimal amount of new data.
• In the fourth interview, we get repeated and a very minimal amount of new data.
• In the fifth interview, we get repeated and a very very minimal amount of new data.

As we carry more interviews, we will get less original data, which ceases to make sense if we have already detected behavior patterns.

Detecting opportunities: the second key to Design Thinking

Identify patterns of social behaviors and organize the information.

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With all the answers, find out which are: facts (relevant data to understand the context or users), pain points (undesired situations), bliss points (desired situations), workarounds (informal solutions to current problems, that is, solutions that users found), dilemmas (a situation with two extremes that at first glance seem incompatible) and ideas (solutions that users propose).

How to organize the information?

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Next, you need to structure the information in a framework to define patterns of behavior. Make sure that it suits the work team’s needs and that everyone agrees. Insights transform problems into opportunities. Find unexpected information that catalyzes new ideas.

Proposing solutions: the third key to Design Thinking

Once we understand the problem, it is time to find solutions. As a necessary tool when thinking about solutions, creativity is commonly associated with lateral thinking (thinking outside the box). Having a multidisciplinary team in charge of a project is the best way to diversify lateral thoughts and generate brainstorming to solve a problem.

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For better results, follow the brainstorming rules:

1. Ask for lots of ideas: You need to burry many not-so-good ideas to get the golden one.
2. Free your judgment: The least expected idea may work.
3. Encourage radical ideas: Odd ideas can start a spark of creativity in other team members.
4. Keep the focus on the main topic: The last point may tempt you, but try to stay on track.
5. Value different points of view: Staying proactive and building on ideas of others requires some skill. During a conversation, this translates to using the word “and” instead of “but.”
6. Communicate the essential: Express your ideas in clear, single sentences that fit on a post-it.
7. Be visual: Sometimes, a drawing or a small comparison may help to explain your idea.
8. One conversation at a time: Having a brainstorming moderator ensures that everyone can participate and that no one monopolizes the conversation.
9. Ask a trigger question: Make sure that it is broad enough to allow different ideas, but is also specific enough to focus on your issue.

The ideas generated from the brainstorming should answer the following questions:

What is the need to which my idea responds?
How does the user benefit, or how did the quality of their experience improve thanks to my idea?
What is my differential value?
What distinguishes my idea from others that already exist in my product or with the competition?

A benchmark is crucial at this stage of Design Thinking to observe current trends and seek inspiration to improve my idea.

The final key to Design Thinking: Making ideas tangible

Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

The MPV, also known as the prototype, is how we make our most reliable and ideal idea tangible to solve the problem.
The prototype mainly seeks to fail fast and cheap; that is, it is the iteration process of building, learning, and redefining to advance and improve without spending all the company’s resources. Prototyping saves not only money but also time, personnel, and effort. With practice and experience, this process will be faster.

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Making tangible ideas is the most crucial key to Design Thinking because it helps us reach a better product, using an iterative process with mistakes, learning, and building.

How to make a good prototype?

These are the six principles to consider:

1. Understand the audience and purpose: Know your user to establish the value proposition. Create buyer personas as references. Remember that prototypes are not customizations.
2. Prototype only the essentials: Test what you need, test what generates value, test your hypothesis.
3. Assess imperfections: Don’t focus on perfecting details that aren’t relevant to your value proposition.
4. Consider multiple alternatives: do A / B Testing, perform different experiments to contrast results, and test your hypothesis or value proposition.
5. Take care of resources (time and money): doing a low-quality prototype is not bad since what matters is testing.
6. Be nimble, fail fast, and cheap: create deadlines to build, test, make mistakes, and improve. Remember: time is a resource.
7. Prototype everything: products, interfaces, applications, experiences, and spaces.

And remember the final key: co-create with users the new version of your product.