If you’ve worked with designers, researchers or product managers who’ve been educated in, or advocate for “user centered design”, you’ll know it is well worth researching and learning about this philosophy and the processes it advocates. If you haven’t, see this standardized summary and this video by way of introduction. The original, complete, user centered design process is quite full and nuanced, and like many development and design systems it is rarely (never?) fully and completely implemented as envisioned. However, many of its methods and ways of thinking are useful, even without full adoption of the entire program.
Below, are some thoughts on some of these methods (not the program as a whole) and the good and bad of them, and how to deploy them effectively.
One of the main related methods of user centered design is user testing. This is the most important thing you can take from this. Watch users use your product. There are services and firms that can help you, but even you (yes you!) can record and observe a user while they use your product. Don’t intervene, don’t let them see you. Then ask them questions when they’re done. It’s never not informative.
I love user testing, and have used, and advocated for it, since I learned about it. But it is focus grouping. It will reduce the risk of confusing or failing the user, but it won’t find a compelling use case. Just as a focus grouped movie is less likely to fail, but focus grouping is unlikely to turn a shitty movie into a hit. You still need the need discovery. In user centered design they advocate for a generative research and prototyping process to achieve this. Personally, I’ve never seen such a process uncover a need that cognitive empathy with a well developed persona could not. But obviously these methods have been quite successfully applied by some. It does provide a lot of evidence for needs, though.
Which brings us to personas. Personas are archetypal users that represents a defined audience or role in the system. Often these read like the product of a marketer’s imagination, and that is indeed their origin. Usually they come with some cheesy name (“The Megainfluencer”, “Soccer Mom”, and so on) and some demographics. Even when developed specifically for your audience, I’ve found these to be of less value than user testing. Often they are good for organizing and explaining the product or its user stories, especially in documentation, but less valuable for decision making, or actual feature development. There, they can help develop empathy, and also help give focus and reality to stories and features. But I’ve been involved in very few systems or contexts where rich personas were more useful than just simple names for roles and user types, and associated needs or stories. I’d also strongly urge caution if using personas without real training in user centered design or marketing, especially if the personas involve people unlike yourself. It is very easy for a well intentioned amateur persona to become indistinguishable from an offensive bundle of stereotypes that reinforce bias rather than develop empathy.