What premarital counseling taught me about user experience design.
The time had come.
I had been in a committed relationship with my lady ( now wife) for almost a year and I was looking to take the next step. Seeking more wisdom from mentors, family, and friends before I knelt down on one knee and popped the question, we thought it was a good idea to first enroll in premarital counseling. Premarital counseling helps couples prepare for marriage by discussing a number of topics covering finances, marriage roles, faith, communication styles, parenting styles, children, in-laws, and intimacy.
Throughout the course, I was given a lot of sound advice and walked away with many tools that I could use to sustain a successful marriage. But one session, in particular, had a profound effect on how I viewed my ongoing relationship. The mentor’s message was simple as it was just an action he encouraged us to take. He stated,
“…as men, we need to focus on studying our wives and learning their daily habits so we can be better at anticipating their needs and serving them.”
Over the next few months, I did just that. I studied her. I paid attention to her actions, quirks, habits, facial cues, hand gestures, and her tone of voice when she spoke. I made mental notes of the things she needed when she was happy, stressed, excited, sick, nervous, upset, hungry, etc…
Over time, I realized I could slowly begin to anticipate her needs based on her actions and emotions. If she had a tough day at work and was feeling unappreciated, I knew the remedy that would make her feel joyful and loved. If she was stressed, I knew exactly what to say and do to make her feel relaxed and at peace.
The service I was able to provide now far surpassed what I was doing in the past. As I became more obsessed with studying the needs and habits of my lady, I was able to bring more value to my relationship and improve the quality of our lives.
So, what does this have to do with User Experience (UX) Design?
As a UX designer, it’s our responsibility to improve the lives and businesses of those that use the products we create. UX design, like a relationship, requires the designer to have a deep understanding of those we design for. When you look beneath the surface into who your users truly are, you will become more efficient in determining their needs.
When I began my career as a UX designer, there was a tendency for me to view things from a different perspective than that of the users (crazy I know). I would focus on the features I thought would add value to the product or the latest bells and whistles within the technology industry.
But this reasoning caused me to overlook what the users found valuable. Even though I believed I had a good understanding of what my users needed, their priorities weren't always the first thing I looked at when determining the direction the product should go.
Sometimes we become too focused on validating our own concepts and ideas that we distract ourselves from solving the main issues. It didn’t matter how many new features I wanted to add to the product. If users didn’t find the new features to be useful, then I was just wasting time.
My current approach was a little flawed, and recognized that needed to change.
I was reminded of the advice given by my mentor and how it helped me bring more value to my relationship. It only made sense that I could take this same approach, apply it to my user researching methods, and gain the positive results I was after.
So I tried it. From there on, I used every interaction with the customer as an opportunity to observe and gain a better understanding of the problems we were trying to solve. I observed users actions more than I spoke and asked relevant questions concerning users daily practices.
By observing more on user habits and patterns through our customer exploration sessions, I was able to gain more clarity into the thought process of our users and the major problems they needed to solve for. I realized that many users had common reoccurring questions and themes about what they were experiencing.
Their issues pointed to underlying pain points that hadn’t yet been addressed. Sometimes, our users didn’t initially state what the solution to their problem was. At times, this made it difficult to come up with possible solutions. But, after observing and assessing what the user’s goals were, finding the right answer to solve the correct problem became clear.
This meant that I could add more value, better anticipate the needs of the users, and improve the quality of the product for our customers.
Thanks for reading! View one of my latest case studies where I built and tested a reporting and analytics dashboard for brokers and agents in the real estate industry:
