How To Design For Real User Needs
You’ve given your idea some structure and form and it’s now a clearly identifiable ‘thing’. Your idea may well have originated out of a personal frustration or one that you observed others experiencing.
Nevertheless, you now have an idea that you can put in front of someone and get some initial feedback. You can make sure it’s designed to do something that they will find useful.
As you begin speaking to the type of people who might buy, use or consume your product, you have to find a balance. You need to share enough information about your idea so you get meaningful feedback while not overloading them with information or leading the witness.
Below are five practical steps and questions you can go through to share enough, but not too much, and get the feedback you need to identify important user needs and make progress on your idea. At the end we have provided a template for you to print out and use whenever the need strikes.
Step 1: Describe your idea in functional terms. Think of this as your elevator pitch. Describe it in a way that makes clear what it is or does.
Step 2: Ask your audience what their instinctive reaction to your idea is. Get them to shoot from the hip and give you uncensored feedback … How similar or different is it to anything else they’re aware of? In what way?
