No matter what you’re designing or building, nothing you do matters much if you can’t answer the be-all, end-all, mission critical UX question to end all questions:
What VALUE does this provide to people?
In this the sixth video in our series, we’ll dig into answering that question:
Products of any kind are used by people, so making sure you understand what they care about is a good place to start. Down to the most specific detail we can uncover, who’s going to use this thing? What experiences can we provide that might be valuable to them? And what’s going to make them view our product as being different from those of competitors?
In this sixth installment of our video series, I’m going to show you how to get a handle on who your users are, what matters to them and how to make sure you’re not lumped in with the competition — which can happen no matter how different your solution may truly be.
Unless you know, to some reasonable degree, what value you’re giving people, and why it matters specifically to them, you’re shooting in the dark. And that’s not a good place to be, even if the end product isn’t yours. Because inevitably, when the project finishes and the rubber hits the road, you’re still on the hook for its success. And that particular song goes like this:
- When the app launches and you didn’t answer any of these questions, people don’t use it.
- When the app isn’t used, your client/boss wonders why they paid you all this money to design and build it.
- When she begins to wonder about such things, she gets aggravated.
- When she gets aggravated, she starts pointing fingers.
- When she starts pointing fingers, you can bet that one of them is reserved for you.
Join the Conversation
The best part of writing Think First, my blog posts and speaking engagements is the conversations that they spark. I learn as much from others as they hopefully learn from me. In that spirit, I’d like to know what you think:
In a current or past project, how did you figure out what was valuable to users?
Share your answer with me on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
Stay tuned for part 7 of this video series — and in the meantime, GIVE GOOD UX!
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