UX Product Design Tips: Understanding Your Users for Product Development Success
By Razel Agustino, Product Creation Studio UX Product Design + Researcher
Some of the most important aspects of a successful product design happen very early in the process, well before hardware development begins in earnest. The most critical information comes not from technology or business experts, but from the would-be product users themselves. While a product idea may seem brilliant at the out-set, it’s ultimately the users of the product who decide if your product succeeds.
Product Creation Studio has fine-tuned a UX product design strategy over many years, and we’ve found that it’s the little things that matter when it comes to gathering user input. Here are some tips on how to get the most out of your user research.
From the Horse’s Mouth: User Input Can Truly “Make” Your Product
If you want to understand user needs, you have to talk with and observe users. They can validate your assumptions or teach you that your assumptions are wrong, which can avoid costly mistakes or rework later in the product development process. More often than not, user testing can also reveal new user needs unknown to the team prior to testing. UX product design means the users are your experts. So how do you gather the right information?
Observe the Users in Action
Find out the workarounds that people use currently.
See it in action if you can. Go on a field visit and observe.
Learn the workflow and ask questions to make sure you understand what you’re seeing.
In general, ask lots of questions. Ask which parts or features are most important to them and why, what they prioritize, what they use the most, and why they use certain techniques or equipment and not others. That will start to get you the picture of their needs.
Define the Unmet Needs
To learn more about unmet needs, ask about things that seem sub-optimal. Write down feedback on what your users wish were better..
Ask questions like: What’s the worst thing about this? What would make this better? If you could wave a magic wand and change this any way you want, what would you change?
Expect some wild input. Some users might offer far-fetched solutions, and sometimes the solutions are impossible or pose other problems. That’s OK—ideas like that are still helpful — not for the implementation, but because they can tell you something about where your users are hurting and what they need.
Conduct Interviews
If you can’t do a field visit or site observation, you can still set up interviews with users and talk through how they do things currently, what their priorities are, and what they would like improved.
Document Everything
Take lots of notes for your reference, summarize them into takeaways
Leveraging User Input to Inform a Sound Product Design
Now that you have the information from the users, what do you do? How do you turn that information into actionable steps that inform the product design?
Translate the User Need
Translate the user needs that were articulated and that you discovered in your field visits. For example, if you learn that the time limit for attempting to intubate a neonate is about 30 seconds to stay within acceptable risk, then you know the neonatologist needs equipment that will enable them to complete the procedure in that time limit. If you know that a thoracic surgeon spends the majority of hours-long surgery time dissecting, then you know that the surgeon needs an instrument that is easy and comfortable to control for that maneuver over long periods.
Consider Each User Need Carefully
Evaluate each user need as it relates to the solution you’re creating.
Phrase the need for actionability. Try rephrasing the needs to the form of a Yes/No question. For example: “The user needs to be able to easily and comfortably use a dissecting motion over long periods” becomes “Is the instrument easy and comfortable to use for dissection over long periods?” If you’re offering a good solution, then the answers to all the questions should be “Yes.” (But don’t assume any Yeses—you’ll have to test your solution with users to find out whether you actually hit the mark.)
Get Feedback Throughout the Process
As you proceed in your product design and development activities, it is important to involve users early and often: early to make sure you have a good grasp of what you’re solving for or improving before you sink time and money into the project, and often to check that you’re headed in the right direction. Field visits and interviews are great both early on and later for answering any further questions that may arise as you proceed.
Conduct usability testing with early prototypes. Once you have a prototype (and it doesn’t need to be high-fidelity), usability testing with real users is invaluable. Keep testing. As you continue to refine and increase fidelity, keep testing with users to find out if any of the changes you’ve made have improved things or caused any new problems.
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Product Creation Studio empowers organizations to break through barriers in new product development. With an approach centered on UX product design, our multi-disciplinary team is a force multiplier that provides all the skills needed to bring a product vision to reality.