Understanding User Needs - Part 1
Apparently, every designer has his word on the design. Now this is illogical to debate on the right design. It is always the chicken or the egg contest when it comes to a perfect design between two designers at any given point of time. My journey into understanding the essentials of customer satisfaction begins with “understanding fundamentals” of requirements vs. the customer expectations. The very “approach” to the base of needs is the mantra to deliver! This is elementary but very powerful.
A question always asked: Why is Apple the “innovators of interaction design” – Answer is very simple. “They don’t believe in benchmarks or best practices, but believe redefine them. How do they do that? By understanding the fundamentals of user needs.
Here is an incident that took me by surprise. One of my associate had an interesting conversation with a sales representative about buying a vehicle. We walked into the showroom and asked for a bike. A voice shot back( interesting conversation) - Sir do you need a bike that would travel 70 Miles with one liter or a bike that will race from 0 to 70miles per hour in 4 seconds? - A classic question any other representative would have asked is a mileage/bhp ratio. He understood that this customer has absolutely no clue about the technical specs and needs a bike to commute. He went on, pointing at various bikes – this one does not have a tube within the tyre, you just fill the air, This one stops where u hit the brakes comes with a concept called disc brakes and so on..
The sales guy slowly takes notes on the customer's requirements one by one. Ocassionally asking a simple question where he needs more clarity some times with visual references. Now the customer is even more excited with this interaction. Meanwhile the sales guy gains confidence from the customer. Finally he has a clear picture on the customer's needs which makes it simple for the sales guys to deliver. He finally reads it to the customer and asks if he has got him right. A smile shoots from his face and he says Yes!!! This is exactly what I need. This was one of its kind of an experience I had with a sales guy who was pretty sure of how to sell his product.
Rule no. 1: Understand user needs, Communicate in his language. The customer is not interested in our abbreviations.
Rule no 2: Understand the big picture.
In this contexct the sales represntative has already gained his customer's confidence talking his language.
Let us look at both the faces of the coin from this instance.
From the customer: Sales guy has understood his requirement and delivers what he needs
From the sales guy: I am getting a customer into my kitty by making the customer feel comfortable.
No matter how creative you are - your design will not sell if its not intutive.
A button is not a link if it doesn’t intuit a customer to click on it.! - Be Intuitive. Let the user understand the language.
Watch out for more - Interaction: Taking things your way. - Next !!!
