People and Context

People make sense. It’s our job to find out why.

Human-centred design goes beyond comprehending user demands and takes into account environmental factors, cultural variances, societal effects, and ethical issues. In addition to being user-friendly, HCD seeks to develop solutions that are ethically sound, socially conscious, and flexible enough to work in a variety of settings. In this chapter we’ll dig deeper into these themes — aligning intentions and needs. This starts with framing an intended outcome, mapping relevant stakeholder relationships, and creating archetypical personas based on user research.

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Intended Outcomes

Our objective is for this (existing state) to change for (key user). We want to achieve (ideal state) by addressing (common obstacle) through (our solution).

To frame our intended outcome, start with this statement. Articulate who you think you are trying to help, how you are hoping to serve them, and what factors in your environment should inform the solution you create. Think of this as a version of your mission statement, or an actionable addendum to it.

This is a statement you’ll find yourself frequently revisiting. It isn’t meant to be set in stone, but for a period of time it helps the team orient toward a specific goal. Once we have this outcome in place, let’s shift the lens outward and consider the consequences of this outcome. Every project has people who are not directly interfacing with the solution, but who have a direct stake in the outcome of a project.

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Stakeholder Mapping

Stakeholder mapping brings your team together to capture what you collectively know about your stakeholders and their interests, helping you ensure you have the right representation of voices in the room. Consider those who will be affected by this work, and are invested in its success, or those who must be involved in decision making. Think about existing government relationships and potential community partners. Accounting for these key relationships early on can accelerate a project, save cost and open up opportunities that may have been invisible so far.

There are many different ways in which Stakeholders can be categorised and mapped, here’s a template that focuses on types of value exchanged, and quality of relationships —

Place your product or company at the centre, and start with mapping the existing key stakeholders and allow yourself to speculate on potential relationships you would like to develop to help the product succeed. The word stakeholder might seem inaccurate at times, so you might want to zoom out and consider all actors with agency. Allow the map to get messy and complicated.

The advantage of mind-mapping in this way is two fold — 

1. Collaborating with different people in the team increases the resolution of information on the map.

2. The ability to scan a lot of information at once, and find connections that were previously missed.

Canvases such as Miro, Mural or Figjam allow us to get out of our instinctive linear ways of reasoning, and think spatially in systems, instead.

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User Personas

A persona is a fictional, yet realistic, description of a typical or target user of the product. They help the team consider designs and plans from a point of view that is not their own.

Personas are also useful as a communication artefact for the team, creating a common vocabulary or shorthand. They enable us to recruit more suitable participants at the usability testing stage. Good personas are built off of research, not assumptions. Every piece of information should have a purpose for being included. Only add data that directly influences their interaction with the solution. Personas should be short, digestible, and focused.

Here’s a simple template to capture the archetypical user -

Relevant Attributes

characteristics that describe the user in the context of your product

Needs, Desires or Goals

what are they hoping to achieve that your solution will help them accomplish

Attitude toward Tech

how aware are they of the technology you use and how did they learn about it?

First person Statement

“A first person statement that captures the user in this context”. Give a name to your character to make them more approachable.

Value exchange

how is your solution adding value to the user’s life and what, beyond monetary gains, do they bring you?

Focus on data that matters. If the age, sex or geographical location of a user is irrelevant to their interaction with your solution, you need not include it. Approach it the way you would approach collecting any other user’s data. Context is everything, and determining realistic combinations of characteristics that together could form a single person. A persona is developed from a range of different sources, pulling together common characteristics of similar people into an “archetype” through which a group can be understood.

Consider Extreme Users

The distribution of users of most products or services follows a bell curve with the mainstream users in the centre and remaining ‘extreme users’ on either side of the peak. Luddites on one end and Power Users on the other

When considering the user's needs in design, it’s very easy for a designer to fall into the trap of designing for the first, average user they can think of. Only by understanding the viewpoints of a full range of people is it possible to avoid the pitfall of designing for yourself. While observing extreme users may seem counter-intuitive at first, understanding extreme users is essential for improving the opportunity for innovation in a project. Through speaking to the extreme users and identifying their amplified needs, it can help pull out more meaningful insights and thus gives the potential to push ideas in different directions that you wouldn’t have previously explored.

[Read More]

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Biases

As a researcher, Primacy bias - where you remember the first participant most strongly and Recency bias - when it’s easiest to remember the last thing you heard in an interview, conversation, or similar setting, because it's the most recent — are two inescapable traps we all fall into. While it’s probably not possible to build an immunity against them, being aware of one’s prejudices can deter their biasing effect significantly.

From the participant, Social Desirability bias or Friendliness Bias is a commonly observed one. A person’s tendency to answer questions in a way that will be viewed favourably by others or or one’s tendency to agree with those they like in order to maintain a non-confrontational conversation, is a pertinent human behaviour. Be mindful of this tendency while moderating your sessions.

In usability studies, the social desirability bias can cause participants to focus on the positive aspects of their experience with the product and minimise the negative aspects. One way to guard against this bias is provide participants with a series of statements that came from other users. Ask participants which statement they most relate to, and emphasise that there is no correct answer.

While designing for public digital services, it’s important to be mindful of the digital divide that exists in both developed and developing economies. [Read more]