User needs refinement — why and how to do it
I refined several hundred stories and discovered a host of new insights.
I did this as part of building a user research repository but as user needs are fundamental to user experience, both research and design, I split this section out from my main post on user research repositories.
Refining user needs was by far the most satisfying part of tidying up user research. The organisation I was contracted for had over 1,000 user stories. Some had been created to GDS principles, while others were created years ago and can best be described as a wish list.
So I tidied them up and standardised them. It’s important to note that this is not the way but a way that has really helped me and teams with user needs.
User needs vs User stories — a note on terminology
I use both user need and user story because people use both.
I prefer user need as user stories are used beyond user research and it helps focus creation on what users need, not what they want.
Examples of tidying up user needs
It’s easier to see examples than just to talk through. As such I’ve taken the user needs on Hackney’s library project page and refined them in this AirTable document…
