User Research

If you work in a company designing products or services, you’ve probably heard a lot about “the user”. “The user will realize…”, “The user won’t know how to…” and so forth. Of course, “the user” is usually mentioned when a situation of using a product or a service is discussed and no one in the room is sure what really happens then. In these cases, “the user” can be very accommodating, fitting the preconceptions of designers, engineers and managers alike trying to convince others of their point of view.

The idea that the experience of using a product or a service should be pleasant has penetrated all industries. However, companies are still largely unclear on how to design for user experiences. Because of this, decisions related to the use of products and services are mostly based on intuition that is disguised as vague references to users’ wants and needs. This is where “the user” comes into play. The intuition of a person who has a good amount of experience of designing a certain type of product or a service and interacting with its users can be more than enough for creating a great user experience. On the other hand, it’s almost never a good idea to rely on intuition when designing products and services without previous experience of them.

If the goal is to create products and services that people truly enjoy using, there really is no substitute for user research that includes at least observing and interviewing users in context. Of course, to fully benefit from user research, companies have to commit to it and make it an inseparable part of their processes. Ideally, a company would make user research the sole responsibility of one or several employees with the necessary expertise. Unfortunately, investing in activities that don’t produce readily measurable value is not an option for most companies.

Figure 1. User personas is a valuable tool for injecting user research findings in design of products or services and communicating them to stakeholders. Illustrations by Elisa Pyrhönen.

Even if a company is able to integrate user research into its everyday activities and dedicate resources to it, it still has one major obstacle to overcome: applying the research findings to the design of their products or services. One effective tool for this is user personas. Personas are user models that synthesize user research findings related especially to the behavior of the eventual users of a product or a service. They help to specify requirements, communicate design intentions to stakeholders and create a common understanding of the design task at hand. (Cooper, Reimann & Cronin 2007, p. 75–88) Personas are represented as specific individuals, and as such, they give a face and a name to “the user” who no longer serves as a crutch for the uninformed.

References

Cooper, A., Reimann, R. & Cronin, D. (2007). About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley.

The usability and overall experience of using a product are now major competitive factors in consumer products. People have finally stopped blaming themselves for the problems they have using products and started to demand ease of use. Professionals in the field of user-centered design are in short supply, and new degree programs are popping up left and right to remedy the situation. Does this mean that all the confusion and frustration caused by poorly designed products will at last come to an end? Probably not. The truth is that we, as designers, might not always be the champions of user experience we claim to be.

The Catch-22 of usability is that, in general, the best way to improve the usability of a product is to reduce the amount of using it requires. This is not a new idea. Don Norman (p. 21) brought it up as early as 1990 when discussing user interfaces:

“The real problem with the interface is that it is an interface. Interfaces get in the way. I don’t want to focus my energies on an interface. I want to focus on the job.”

Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, and Dave Cronin (2007, p. 202) are still trying to drive the point home two decades later when giving advice to interaction designers:

“Next time you find yourself crowing about what cool interaction you’ve designed, just remember that the ultimate user interface for most purposes is no interface at all.”

Unfortunately, when making usability improvements, we often end up perpetuating the same problems we’re trying to solve.

We designers are creative people, and as such, we have a tendency to create. So, when we’re asked to, for example, make something easy to use, that is exactly what we do, make. This is supported by the fact that our core skills are typically related to giving form to something. Of course, there are plenty of cases when interaction with a product is desirable and there is definitely something to be said about making beautiful products just for the sake of it. Still, even the decision of having users interact with anything at all should ideally be based on a thorough understanding of user needs.

An argument could be made that usability development should be left for non-design professionals with a background, for example, in cognitive science and ethnography. However, people will always gravitate towards solutions they’re familiar with and avoid the opposite, and it’s unlikely that any single professional will be able to tackle all usability issues. For this reason, the best outcome is likely achieved by a team of experts with a mixture of competencies, a common goal of making people’s lives as easy as possible, and no preconceived notions of the final outcome.

References

Norman, Donald. 1990. “Why Interfaces Don’t Work.” In The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design, edited by Brenda Laurel, 206–209. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Cooper, Alan, Reimann, Robert & Cronin, Dave. 2007. About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley.

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