Using Maslows Hierarchy of Needs to classify features into severity levels
Background
A while back, I was working on a project with pritish.sai to redesign the Walmart mobile app to improve the in-store shopping experience. This included improving the experience with Lists and the role they played in allowing the shopper to be efficient and accurate when selecting products in an aisle.
We first conducted a usability evaluation of the existing list feature and established the painpoints that users face when creating, editing and in general interacting with the list.
The Problem
Although I have my own method of prioritizing features using the Feature Prioritization Matrix, here the feature was already fixed, the List. The problem we faced was classifying the user pain points.
The Solution
Obviously, the first step was to look for existing methods to classify user pain points. After a bit of research, we found the following definitions for severity ratings from usability.gov
Critical: If we do not fix this, users will not be able to complete the scenario.
Serious: Many users will be frustrated if we do not fix this; they may give up.
Minor: Users are annoyed, but this does not keep them from completing the scenario. This should be revisited later.
Although this gives a good general starting point, this wasn’t enough to represent the pain point classification in a more visual and comprehendible manner.
The Extra Mile
We wanted something that represents a hierarchy of severity and affected the affiliation the user has with the application. After quite a bit of search, we found the answer.
Behold, the pyramid!
Maslow’s pyramid or otherwise known as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs was the perfect solution.
We created a combination of the Maslows hierarchy from nngroupand Irens post, combined it with the severity ratings from usability.gov.
The Combination
From the new chart, we can infer that
Critical problems relate to the Functionality and reliability of the product and if not attended to, the user will not be able to complete the task that the product promises to fulfil.
Serious problems are problems that cause frustration among the users. The functionality works as expected but the interface does not allow the user to do it smoothly or allow them to do it in an efficient manner.
Minor problems are mostly cosmetic problems that are good to have but its not the end of the world if they are not implemented.
The End Product
Conclusion
In this article I tried to combine Maslow’s hierarchy of needs with the severity ratings. This allows a product designer or a UX designer to have a hierarchy alone with the severity of the rating.
