You should think like a user to design like a pro. (Part I)
What makes certain products so good that you always love using them? Why are some apps so addictive that it almost seems like you can't do without them? Have you ever stopped to think about why there are apps you can’t stop using every day?
Well, the answer is simple and almost completely obvious - Great design! An even simpler way of putting that answer is that these products or services are designed so well that they fit perfectly into our everyday life. They have been skilfully crafted to be part of our daily experiences. In a very clear sense, these products are useful, they are accessible, and they can sometimes be quite engaging.
So, you may ask, what makes design that powerful? What exactly do creators do or add to make their products an essential part of our lives? Perhaps, you want to design or create your own thing and are looking to make it as powerful. Then here is a good place to start - think like a user.
Usability is the key!
There’s no way to overemphasise how important it is to make sure that your product is useful to your users. No pun intended. People will not use your product if it’s useless to them or doesn’t in some way cater to a need for them. Period! That’s the key to sustainable products and interactive experiences. A very large percentage of the things we can see around us at the moment is there because we find them useful. In the same vein, you’ve not downloaded all the apps in the app store for obvious reasons - you don’t need all of them.
Because resources are naturally limited, prioritisation makes functionality one of the weightiest considerations when it comes to products.
One great way to start designing a functional product is to put yourself in the shoes of the people who’d use that product. If you need to completely understand the problem you’re trying to solve, you need to first see it from the user’s frame of view. This would mean that you would have to put aside any preconceptions you’ve had about the problem in order to experience it precisely. This kind of proximity to the challenge presents you with the opportunity to create a solution that directly and correctly addresses the user’s need.
In this process, you should be able to provide adequate answers to the following questions:
Is there a real problem, and is it worth solving?
What emotions are evoked around the problem? What is the emotional journey the user goes through before, during and after the problem is solved?
What are the user's expectations? What should a solution look like to the user?
Of course, understanding your users and their needs is not a one-day affair. It’s a gradual learning process where you continuously drop off assumptions and discover insightful habits. That’s why it will be absolutely rewarding at every stage of the growth of your product.
We’ll discuss these questions extensively in the next part of this Story. Let's go!
