Why Would Anyone In Their Right Mind Talk To Their Users Anyway?
When you are developing a new product or service or when you are updating an existing one, talking to your users is one of the scariest and at the same time potentially most valuable things you can do. It’s an investment, no doubt about that, but it’s one that has a huge return if you do it well. Involving your users can lead to higher quality products and services and reduce risk.
A valuable design for a product or service is one that meets three requirements:
- Feasibility. First of all the idea needs to be doable. It must be technically and organizationally possible to produce the product or service. If not, you need to invest in that area.
- Viability. On top of that, the idea has to generate value for your organization. All things that are possible do not automatically generate value. The product or service must fit the long term strategy of your organization about how it intends to create value.
- Desirability. And, last but not least, the idea must fit the needs of your users. If no-one is excited about your product or service, you are not creating value for your organization.
The first two are internal affairs. What makes the third so tricky is that you have to step outside your organization for that. And there can be many reasons why this is difficult, scary or downright impossible. It can be difficult to contact your users. Or maybe you want to target a new demographic and you don’t know exactly who is in it. Or your users are reluctant to invest time in talking to you about new products and services. Maybe you are working on top-secret stuff that nobody outside your organization can know about. Often it is also very scary to talk to users because they might say things you don’t want to hear.
About that last thing, I can reassure you. When you talk to users, you don’t have to do everything they say. You also have your own strategic vision and technical and organizational conditions that have to be met. The input of the users is just one of the factors that impact the decision-making process.
When it’s really impossible to talk to your users, there is also the middle way of the user persona. A persona is a fictional description of a user. If you start thinking about who your users are and what their needs are and you try to empathize with that, you will already get some new insights.
But the insights and confirmation that you get from interacting with real users are far more valuable. Because next to using the perspective of the user to get a fresh view of your product or service, you can get way more from that interaction:
- Test assumptions. Maybe one of the most important things you can do during the development of products and services is finding out whether your assumptions are right. Often we don’t even know we are making all kinds of assumptions when we think about our products and services. There are bound to be numerous assumptions in both your problem description and in your solutions. Testing assumptions will only work if you are talking to real users. Making wrong assumptions creates the risk of developing solutions that will not work for your target audience.
- Collect valuable insights. Users can not only help you identify your assumptions but also with uncovering the right questions and the finding of new solutions. When you know what troubles your users, when you know exactly what problem they are trying to solve, when you know precisely why they use your product or service, you can better serve them. Often users bring you questions you have never thought of yourself.
- De-risk. The development or improvement of products or services is a risky operation. If you fuck it up, your investment is lost or users turn away from you. In each step of the development process, you have to make choices. If you involve users, you can validate those choices each step of the way. By using prototypes, you can test whether you are making the right choices. This way you can take away the risk in your project and prevent costly mistakes.
- Grow ambassadors. When you involve users, they usually appreciate that very much. If they can help to design products and services they care about, they like that. It’s innovative and creative work. You not only project an image of an open, modern, innovative organization but the users you involve can turn into ambassadors and share their experience in their network. This way you can build social capital.
- Motivate your team. Most people are motivated by doing something good for others. But the reality in most organizations is that most people are too far removed from the users they work for. By bringing employees closer to the user, you can increase their level of motivation. When they see why they do their work, that can be very inspirational.
- Stakeholder alignment. Putting the needs of users central in your project can help to solve differences of opinion between stakeholders. If you make the user the judge of what works and what doesn’t, you can create a central focus point to create a shared vision and common goal.
All these benefits not only go for involving users but for everyone. For a successful project, you need to engage all stakeholders. Not only is the support of all stakeholders a critical success factor, but they can also provide valuable knowledge and insights for your project. All of this takes time and money. But think about how valuable it could be if you could prevent costly failures, make a higher quality product or service, create a support base for your project, have a motivated team, and spend less time on support because your users better understand your product or service. Investing in involving your users will yield returns on multiple levels.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, don’t forget to hit the clap button. I will dive deeper into the topics of Design Leadership in upcoming articles. If you follow me here on Medium, you will see them pop up on your Medium homepage. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to see new articles in your timeline or talk to my bot at dennishambeukers.com :)
