EP 012
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Full Transcript
Hi, so happy to have you here! This is where I share my thoughts on how design changed the way I think and do, and why I think design is simply a part of life. My name is Sandy, and I’m A Design Mentor.
It’s been a while since the last episode! I’m still here, I haven’t forgotten to share my love for design, I was just taking some time to deal with life, so I took an intentional break. If you have been waiting, thank you, thank you for being patient, I’m back! Now let’s get into today’s topic.
At the end of last episode, I said we would talk about users. I’m sure you’ve heard of this term every single time anything design related is mentioned. Especially as product designers, we often hear about needing to think about users need, and to design for the users.
But who are they? It’s the people interacting with our designs and products, it could be you, it could be me, and honestly it could be anyone around us. As long as someone is interacting with a product, they are one of the users. As long as this is someone who you tried to solve the design problem for, they could become one of the users. But this is a hugely generic explanation.
To truly understand this group of individuals, we need to first know who they are, how they prefer to interact with the product, and why they would choose the product.
Let’s look at a real life example.
Sarah, Carrie, David, and John all live in this town where there are two supermarkets. Market A proudly focuses on knowing all their customers by their first names, providing locally sourced produce, dairy, along with mostly organic products on the shelves. Market B focuses on providing the largest variety of products from all over the world on their shelves, along with the best prices.
Sarah, Carrie, and David cook often and they aim to support local farmers, so they stop by Market A on a weekly basis to purchase their produce. Both Sarah and David also care a lot about eating organic, so they spend all of their grocery budget in Market A. On the other hand, Carrie shops for a large family and loves to take advantage of the savings and the variety of goods from Market B, so she divides her grocery budget between Market A and B accordingly. Meanwhile, John wants to focus on being frugal with a limited budget, so he only stops by Market A once a month to pick up his favorite butter as a splurge, and spends the rest of his grocery budget in Market B.
From the shopping pattern of these four individuals, we could see a little bit of who they are. But we need to know not only their preferences, but a whole multitude of other things. Such as, why do they prefer organic? Are they trying to look for even more ways to save? Do they cook daily? Are they shopping for family members with specific diets or needs? Do they regularly purchase hard to find imported ingredients? Do they prefer a one-stop shop? How do they shop for special occasions? What about the holidays? There are SO many more questions to ask.
This is why before designing any product, we first need to conduct some user research, in order to understand who we’re designing for. It’s important to ask as many questions as we can, or even invite the users to tell us their stories. This way, we not only see who the users are, but what they want in a product, and the values we could provide them long-term through our designs. We need the information and stories to predict how our product might impact and improve their lives.
When I first started in design, I didn’t understand this. As a young designer, I was more eager to prove myself as someone who knew how to use colors, shapes and typography with style. I focused on my technical skills, and it took time for me to see the bigger picture. This is quite common in a designer’s career, because we all start from scratch, and we gotta work on the technical skills first. But as I moved into product design, I started seeing the world differently.
And I think the biggest realization for me was that, I am not my user. Because of work, I could be more tech-aware or tech-savvy than some, and I could be quicker to adjust to a new digital interface. But to some, even going from an iPhone with a home button to a full touch-screen one was a hurdle. Because I am constantly challenged to think in numbers, pixels, modules, and models, so I might have very specific logic and my way of working, but that doesn’t mean the users will have the same logic as mine. No one is better or worse. The only thing for me to do was to step out of the box I already know, to see how others relate to the world. As It is dangerous to assume my users are just like me. Did you hear that key word here? Assume, assumption, yes, this is the opposite of discovery and empathy.
If you’re interested in this topic, definitely go check out Episode 9.
If I assume, then what I create would be made only for what I know and want. And I’d miss out on the opportunity to discover the rest of the world. This perhaps is the one thing that I love most about design, it forces me to learn continuously. I pay attention to how generational beliefs, diverse cultural gaps, and different lifestyle habits impact people’s needs. I pay attention to all the little things and enjoy all of the conversations I strike up with Uber drivers, just so I can hear how they interact with the app and the system. Not to mention Uber drivers in different countries have different needs. It’s easy to assume that designing for the Uber app means designing for the users who need rides or food, but the drivers are also a group of users, and they use the app VERY differently. Yet another group of users are the restaurants who receive Uber orders. Have you considered how they interact with the system? This is all very interesting, isn’t it?
One of the most fun learning opportunity I had was when I designed a sports app. With my team, I spent time to understood what sports an American sports fan could follow in a full year. And this is how I found out July is a dry month for an American sports fan. If I never learned this, I would not know that the group of editors maintaining the sports app would need to plan more diverse content for July, and it’s potentially a great opportunity to put together more in-depth stories.
So, if you are currently designing something, whether it’s a pen, a pair of shoes, a new cake, a new menu for your restaurant, a curriculum, an app for a medical group, try to talk to the people who could be interested in what you’re designing. And, try not to only talk to your family and friends. The more you hear from the actual people who could use your design, the more surprises you will get, the more expansive your world will get, and the better your design will be.
I’m curious, what was one memorable conversation that made you feel like your world just got a little bit bigger?
Next time, I will try to demystify User Journey.
If you’d like to hear more, please subscribe, and turn on your notifications, I am beyond excited to go on this journey with you.
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