In the previous article, I introduced the fictitious mobile application “Stormie”. Stormie demonstrates how Design Thinking (UX) provides designers with a problem solving process to come up with innovative solutions for problems facing a particular audience.
In this article, I will dive further into how I applied Design Thinking for Stormie, covering stage 1 of the process, “Empathize”.
Overview
The Design Thinking process helps designers learn about the user, their needs, and come up with new ideas for innovative solutions. These ideas are then turned into a prototype and tested to refine the usability for creating better solutions.
The empathize and define stages help define the problem space. And the ideation stage helps us come up with useful and innovative ideas for prototyping and testing. The prototype and test stages make the solution easy to use and provide feedback for further iteration (ideation, prototyping, and testing).
Stage 1, Empathize: Research user needs
The first step is to understand and empathize with the users. In our case, the users are aspiring writers. To better understand the needs of aspiring writers, research is required. There are different dimensions and research methods within UX research. The goal for each method is to better understand the user and their needs. If done properly, the methods will generate quality user data for synthesis in the next stage, “Define”.
Common user research methods
User interviews
Usability studies
Surveys
User data analysis
Ethnographic field studies
Participatory design
Note
If you don’t have direct access to the users and it’s difficult to conduct user interviews, surveys, or usability testing, investigate their communities. In this case, you’d research writing forums, blogs, and sites for writers. Other sources for user data are website analytics, heat-maps, session recordings, and other user data that doesn’t require direct access to the users. In any case, it’s helpful to have data from more than one source to verify assumptions in the Define stage.
Stormie UX research method: User interviews
For “Stormie”, user interviews is our research method. To learn more about aspiring writers and the problems they face, in-person user interviews were conducted. Writers from community writing centers were asked questions about their writing goals, a typical day with writing, lifestyle, current tools, ideation process, tasks, and problems.
Before conducting the interviews, prepare a simple script to introduce yourself, the purpose and goal of the interview. In the end, thank them for their time and ask if they know any other users (writers in our case) you can reach out to for interviews – preferably with similar problems. Referrals are a great way to find your target audience and early adopters.
Stormie interview questions
When did you start writing?
Why do you write?
Do you have a writing goal?
How are you progressing towards the goal?
Is there anything preventing you from achieving this goal?
What types of writing do you do?
Is it long form like a book or shorter form like a short story?
How does writing make you feel?
When do you feel this way?
What do you write about?
When do you write?
When do you write most?
Where are you when you write? At home, work…?
Do you currently use any writing tools or applications?
If so, what? Do they help? If not, why not? If so, how?
Have you used any writing tools or applications in the past?
If so, what? Did they help? If not, why not? If so, how?
Can you describe a typical writing day?
How do you come up with ideas to write about?
Can you describe the idea generation process, and going from idea to writing it down?
What is the biggest pain about your writing process?
If you could wave a magic wand and change anything in your writing process, what would it be?
If done properly, user interviews are one of the most useful UX research methods. Interviews allow the designer to learn first hand what the issues are. Follow the tips below to ensure you get the most out of the interviews.
And remember, just because a user says something doesn’t mean it’s true. Listen carefully to what users do, think and feel as well. The truth is a mix between what users say, do, think, and feel.
User interview tips
Great questions to ask for any product
Tailor the below to your audience.
What is the biggest pain about how you work?
If you could wave a magic wand and change anything in what you do, what would it be?
Do
Have a set of questions you use every time
Ask open-ended questions
Ask the same question from multiple angles
Ask follow-up questions
Keep your reactions neutral
Keep the conversation natural
Talk about solutions last
Don’t
Don’t ask leading or directed questions
Don’t ask people what they want
Don’t ask yes/no questions
Don’t make assumptions
Don’t mention other users
Don’t use jargon
Below are quotes from the interviews. Quotes are useful to highlight information that may be useful for insights and opportunities in the next stage when synthesizing all the data.
Stormie user quotes
“I’ve been trying to write a book for years, but can’t find the time. I’m just so busy.”
“I have tons of ideas all over the place. Organizing them is going to be a nightmare.”
“I can’t seem to write more than a few paragraphs without researching “how to write” online. I never know if what I’m writing is effective or not.”
“I wish there was a way to see where my ideas fit in the overall story structure.”
Next time: review the research data for “problem statement” insights in the Define stage
In the next article, I will show how I found insights from Stormie user research to create a problem statement. A problem statement is a clear and concise summary of the user, their need, and why the need is important to the user. See you in the next stage of Design Thinking, “Define”.
In the previous article on designing for deep user engagement, I introduced a bicycle as a way to visualize UX and PX. With this new visualization in mind, let’s dig deeper to understand the differences between UX and PX in terms of thinking. In particular, between Design Thinking (UX) and Game Thinking (PX). Understanding the differences between the two allows us to clearly define roles when integrating UX and PX processes. Without this distinction, there will be confusion and possible conflict when trying to merge processes.
For instance, when trying to introduce PX into a project using a UX Process, or vice versa.
What is Design Thinking?
Design Thinking is a “problem-solving” process
Design Thinking has five stages
Empathize: emphasize with your users
Define: define user needs, user problems, and insights
Ideate: challenge assumptions and come up with ideas for innovative solutions
Prototype: turn the ideas into testable prototypes
Test: use the prototypes to test the ideas
Design thinking is an iterative design process used by a wide range of designers and creators, including UX designers, to create innovative solutions to user needs and problems. Design thinking involves all five stages described above.
What are the goals of design thinking?
This traditional design process solves user problems, not user motivation. In Design Thinking, when a user solves a problem, that’s the goal. This process helps creatives come up with ways for users to solve their problem and reach their goal.
For example, in a note-taking application, a goal might be to “create a new note”. Once the user creates a new note, the goal is complete.
Sure, the user can move on to another goal such as deleting the note or creating a new note again, but it’s not emotionally engaging. You may be happy that you completed a goal such as creating a new note, but does it make you jump out of your seat in victory? Does it make you want to create a hundred new notes? No.
Design Thinking does not design for re-engagement. It won’t motivate customers to return and use the product over long periods of time. It won’t motivate the user to create a hundred new notes.
Users come back and make new notes not because they are emotionally engaged, but because the product solves a problem that matters to them (taking notes).
The user is returning to solve the problem again (take notes), not to feel something again.
Next time: Practice! Let’s apply our learning with the fictitious application “Stormie”
To help explain the differences between Design Thinking (UX) and Game Thinking (PX), I created a fictitious mobile application called “Stormie”. In the next article, I will explain step-by-step how I used the Design Thinking process to create the application UX.
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