Often when solving design problems we take into account the demands of stakeholders, or our desire to create beautiful work. These are both valuable for informing the choices we make, but there’s another factor that’s imperative to our design’s success: the needs of real people. We’ll talk about why human need matters in design, why we resist getting close to our users, and practical, easy ways to put users front and center in our process.

1. Getting Personal: The
Why and How of
Designing for People.
Meagan Fisher
@owltastic on Twitter

3. “I find your lack of
design disturbing.”

4. How can design take
a fantastic idea to the
next level?

5. Job Responsibilities
user research, information
architecture, brand design, user
experience design, visual design,
interaction design, responsive
design, front-end development,
content, marketing, and product
strategy, and more.

6. It’s a lot
of stuff.

7. It’s a lot
of stuff.

8. Empathy.

9. “Fellow designers, let’s
try to get through a day
without saying ‘empathy’.”
@Zeldman

10. empathy
tenderhearted
compassionate
altruistic
sympathetic
kindforgiving
loving

11. NO.

12. What does
empathy mean in
the context of user
experience design?

13. Develop an understanding of
the feelings and needs of users.
This understanding comes
from exposure to users.
With this understanding, we
design effective solutions.

14. Develop an understanding of
the feelings and needs of users.
This understanding comes
from exposure to users.
With this understanding, we
design effective solutions.

15. Develop an understanding of
the feelings and needs of users.
This understanding comes
from exposure to users.
With this understanding, we
design effective solutions.

16. Develop an understanding of
the feelings and needs of users.
This understanding comes
from exposure to users.
With this understanding, we
design effective solutions.

17. What determines
the success or
failure of a design?

18. sans or serif?
animated?
mobile first?
bright or dark?
photography?
collapsible nav?
short or long?
subtle or bold?
responsiveness? accessibility?

19. How do
we begin?

20. “Here is one of the few effective keys
to the design problem — the ability of
the designer to recognize as many of
the constraints as possible — his
willingness and enthusiasm for
working within these constraints.”
Charles Eames

21. Looking for Constraints
1. What are the business goals?
2. What will look best?

22. Looking for Constraints
1. What are the business goals?
2. What will look best?

23. Looking for Constraints
1. What are the business goals?
2. What will look best?

24. Coca-Cola

25. sugar, salt,
& caffeine

29. what the hell.

32. “We did not understand
the deep emotions of so
many of our customers for
Coca-Cola.”
Coca-Cola President Donald R. Keough

33. “They didn't ask the
critical question of Coke
users: Do you want a new
Coke?”
Sam Craig, professor of marketing and international
business at the Stern School of Business at NYU

34. Looking for Constraints
1. What are the business goals?
2. What will look best?

35. Clear liquids
were the flat
design of the
90’s.

39. Let’s use
every
font this
baby has.

40. “A lot of times as a leader you think, "They
don't get it; they don't see my vision."
People were saying we should stop and
address some issues along the way, and
they were right. It would have been nice if
I'd made sure the product tasted good.”
David C. Novak of Yum! Brands,
credited with introducing Crystal Pepsi

41. Looking for Constraints
1. What are the business goals?
2. What will look best?
3. What do people actually want?

42. Isn’t this old
news?

43. Isn’t this old
news?

44. “We didn’t spend enough time talking
with customers and were rolling out
features that I thought were great, but
we didn’t gather enough input from
clients.… You have to pay attention to
your customers and adapt to their
needs.
VoterTide Postmortem

45. “…people didn’t really LIKE
anything about our product. No
one that used the service
thought it was that cool.
Zillionears ,
“My Startup Failed. F@<#.”

46. “...we rarely had meaningful
conversations with our target end-
users. And while we had some
wonderful advisors … we should
have met with everyone we could
get our hands on.”
Part Two of the HelloParking Postmortem

47. Real human needs are
the most valuable
constraint we have.

48. Innovation.

49. “Innovation happens when you
add value for the user. Teams with
more exposure to how real people
use their designs can more easily
see opportunities for innovation.”
Jared Spool, Exposure Hours
Drive UX Innovation

50. Why do designers
resist finding and
using this
important data?

51. “It’s someone else’s job.”
“I don’t know where to begin.”
“It may raise inconvenient questions.”
“It’s expensive and time consuming.”
“I already know my users.”

52. Getting to know the user
doesn’t have to be hard.

53. “Make friends with reality.
Cultivate a desire to be proven
wrong as quickly as possible
and for the lowest cost.”
Erika Hall, Just Enough Research

54. How do we
make friends
with reality?

55. “Successful design teams have each
team member spend a minimum of
two hours every six weeks watching
real users interacting with either
their design or a competitor’s design.”
Jared Spool, Exposure Hours
Drive UX Innovation

56. Ask questions
to understand
context.
Listen for
unmet needs
and goals.
Observe
frustrations
and successes.
Dispel your
mistaken
assumptions.

57. Ask questions
to understand
context.
Listen for
unmet needs
and goals.
Observe
frustrations
and successes.
Dispel your
mistaken
assumptions.

58. Get as close to a real
person as you can.

59. In-person interviews
achieve all of these goals.
Ask questions to
understand context.
Listen for unmet
needs and goals.
Observe frustrations
and successes.
Dispel your mistaken
assumptions.

60. Watch them use the product.

61. In-person testing
Software: Silverback
✓ Record video and audio
✓ Record screen inputs
✓ Take notes
✓ View later and share with team

62. Absent real users,
interview people
closest to your target
audience

63. Don’t forget
the competition.

64. Remote testing
Example: UserTesting.com
✓ Recruit users or be paired with their testers
✓ Create tasks for testers, or use suggested tasks
✓ Screen and audio recordings

65. demo via usertesting.com

66. Remote testing achieves
most of these goals.
Ask questions to
understand context.
Listen for unmet
needs and goals.
Observe frustrations
and successes.
Dispel your mistaken
assumptions.

67. Observation tools
Example: FullStory.com, Inspectlet.com
✓ Screen recordings of current
users in the product
✓ Great for making small changes
to relieve immediate frustrations

68. recording from fullstory.com

69. Observational tools achieve
some of these goals.
Ask questions to
understand context.
Listen for unmet
needs and goals.
Observe frustrations
and successes.
Dispel your mistaken
assumptions.

70. Analytics tools tell you what
is happening, but not why.
Ask questions to
understand context.
Listen for unmet
needs and goals.
Observe frustrations
and successes.
Dispel your mistaken
assumptions.

71. Beyond tools and
testing, listen to
what users are
already telling you.

72. Be
easy to
reach.

73. Be
easy to
reach.

74. Hi Mary,
Thanks for signing up! My name is Courtney and I'm
responsible for making sure your trial is an absolute
success.
What are you trying to achieve with video? How are you
defining success for your video project? With this
information, I can point you in the direction of the
features that will be most useful to you, recommend super
helpful documentation, and brainstorm with you about
the best ways to leverage our platform.
Shoot me a quick email, and I'll get right back to you.
Have a great day!
Courtney

75. Hi Joseph,
I am reaching out to you because I would like to better
understand your recent decision to cancel your video hosting
account with us.
What ultimately led you to close your account? Did you run
into any problems with the SproutVideo platform? Were
there features that you were looking for that you could not
find or that we didn't offer? I noticed you mentioned price
was an issue - did you find another provider that offered
better value?
Any feedback you could give us would be greatly
appreciated.
Thanks in advance,

76. Ask questions
to understand
context.
Listen for
unmet needs
and goals.
Observe
frustrations
and successes.
Dispel your
mistaken
assumptions.

77. Tweet: “I can’t figure out how to
use SproutVideo to password
protect my videos.”
TAGGED: SECURITY, PRIVACY PROTECTION,
PRODUCT FRUSTRATION
Email: “It’d be awesome if I could
charge for my videos through my
SproutVideo website.”
TAGGED: PAYMENT SYSTEM, VIDEO WEBSITE,
FEATURE REQUEST

78. Make user exposure an ongoing
part of your process
• Read a random sample of support tickets
for 15 minutes every morning
• Get notifications for tweets people are
sending to your organization.
• Ask a sales representative to listen in on
a call once a week.

79. What do I get
for all this
empathy?

80. ✦ Useful constraints
✦ Meaningful content
✦ Better critiques
✦ Iterative changes

81. ✦ Useful constraints
✦ Meaningful content
✦ Better critiques
✦ Iterative changes

82. ✦ Useful constraints
✦ Meaningful content
✦ Better critiques
✦ Iterative changes

83. ✦ Useful constraints
✦ Meaningful content
✦ Better critiques
✦ Iterative changes

84. User empathy gives
our work purpose.

85. Be less terrible
to work with.

86. Imagine if you interacted with
coworkers this way.
Ask questions to
understand context.
Listen for unmet
needs and goals.
Observe frustrations
and successes.
Dispel your mistaken
assumptions.

87. Recommended Reading
• Practical Empathy by Indi Young
• Just Enough Research by Erika Hall
• Design is a Job by Mike Monteiro
• You’re My Favorite Client by Mike Monteiro
• UIE.com

88. Recommended Reading
• Practical Empathy by Indi Young
• Just Enough Research by Erika Hall
• Design is a Job by Mike Monteiro
• You’re My Favorite Client by Mike Monteiro
• UIE.com

89. Recommended Reading
• Practical Empathy by Indi Young
• Just Enough Research by Erika Hall
• Design is a Job by Mike Monteiro
• You’re My Favorite Client by Mike Monteiro
• UIE.com

90. Recommended Reading
• Practical Empathy by Indi Young
• Just Enough Research by Erika Hall
• Design is a Job by Mike Monteiro
• You’re My Favorite Client by Mike Monteiro
• UIE.com

91. Recommended Reading
• Practical Empathy by Indi Young
• Just Enough Research by Erika Hall
• Design is a Job by Mike Monteiro
• You’re My Favorite Client by Mike Monteiro
• UIE.com

92. Thanks!
Meagan Fisher
@owltastic on twitter
meagan@owltastic.com