Understanding the User in User Experience
Grace Ng
Lesson 12
Effective user experience starts with a good understanding of your users. Not only do you want to know who they are, but you want to dive deeper into understanding their motivations, mentality, and behavior. This deep insight into your users will help you keep your product focused on delivering a great experience. But how do we know what our users really want?
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Quick Tips for Effective Customer Interviews
Effective user interviews are the first step in understanding how your users think and behave. Read these techniques on how to structure insightful interview questions. There are many pitfalls in conducting interviews that can bias your data and steer you down the wrong path! So be aware of leading questions and try to conduct an interview yourself.
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When should your startup focus on UX?
Now that you understand more about your user, take a moment to look over their answers. Who is she? What is her problem and how is she currently dealing with it? How frustrating or frequent is this problem for her? Understanding this will help you better integrate your product into their lifestyle and behavior.
Read this article and identify where your product falls in the quadrant when designing for a user's problem. This will help you understand when to optimize your UX or when to be quick and scrappy. -
BJ Fogg's Behavior Model
There's no better way to understand a problem than by learning about the existing behavior exhibited. As designers, we're in the business of changing user behavior to achieve a goal.
Read this article on BJ Fogg's Behavior Model and identify the motivation, trigger, and ability your user needs to use your product. -
Quick Course On Effective Website Copywriting
Let's not forget copywriting! Your website's copy is an important form of communication and persuasion for your user. As engineers, it's easy to think in terms of programming jargon and place that on your website. But, your users won't grok this and will probably leave. Remember to think from their perspective.
Read through this crash course on copywriting and write a friendly paragraph that introduces your product and why your user should care. -
Rocket Surgery Made Easy by Steve Krug: Usability Demo
As you can see, user experience design is constant communication with your users. If you're ever unsure about whether your product, new feature, or line of copy makes sense, you can always do a quick reality check with your users to stay on track.
Watch this informative video from usability guru, Steve Krug, on how to conduct an effective usability test.
Grace Ng
Cofounder & Design Lead, Lean Startup Machine
I'm co-founder and design lead at Lean Startup Machine and creator of Validation Board. I'm also Lean UX coach for The White House and Wharton UPenn. I fight for the users, push pixels, tweet and write code.
