User Portrait: Building Customer Cognition

When designing an experience project, it is very important to locate the 5W dimension: who-for whom, why-why, where-where, how-how, what happens in key links-what. The first section talks about WHO's positioning, how to establish customer awareness, create a clear portrait of "for whom" for team members, and ensure that the design does not deviate from the needs of the main body.

Customer research

The purpose of the survey is to help us locate the customer base more clearly: Who is ta? What kind of person is it? Whether the things we design can meet their needs and habits. Common qualitative research methods include interviews, field trips and scenario simulations.

1 interview

In addition to understanding the specific steps through questionnaires, open interviews can get more useful information. You can let the interviewer introduce his background first, ask questions with curiosity and empty cup mentality, and don't evaluate the way the interviewer describes it. Interviewers should not ask questions on the premise that they know the correct method to reduce leading questions. The information needed in this link is what the interviewee will encounter in the actual scene and what ta will do. What matters in an interview is not "being able to talk", but "being good at listening". Some simple techniques:

(1) Ask respondents to recall a key event that caused serious consequences;

(2) Let ta describe this experience: what happened, what went wrong, why did it go wrong, and their feelings;

(3) Asking what the ideal situation should be is easier to reveal the potential expectations and needs of ta.

Talking about specific events can help us understand each other's emotional experience and thinking process more deeply. In improving design, the common design strategy is to make up or reduce the gap between what users experience and what they expect.

2 observation

One is to observe the scene, mainly paying attention to the customer's movement, spatial layout, personnel and equipment, and recording the observation. If allowed, you can take photos of key links. The other is to observe the interaction and reaction between participants and equipment and personnel, that is, the behavior of ta. The observed phenomenon can be used as a reference for subsequent design and transformation.

For observing users, I usually do some exercises: after I have established a certain understanding of the characteristics of a certain user group, I will observe the behavior of this group more in my life. For example, when I do a small program for a beauty salon, I will pay more attention to the groups with similar attributes to the bosses in the beauty industry in daily life: first-tier cities, women aged 40-50, with good economic conditions, and see how they use their mobile phones (they don't like to learn to operate by themselves, and they are used to asking young people, etc.). ) and how to communicate. The application in the design business is to make different demonstrations for the boss and the store manager, highlighting only the most important operation and employee data, notices, etc. Give it to the boss, and at the same time, beside the store manager, highlight the daily operation entrance (maintenance project, beautician distribution, etc. ) shop.

3 experience

Complete an experience by yourself as a consumer and record the events and feelings during the experience. Self-experience is the most likely way to find unique insights. Another way is to deliberately design a difficult experience, design obstacles for each link, and find as many experience items as possible. For example, simulating a hotel reservation process with many obstacles, such as room selection, deposit payment, change and refund, check-in, hotel experience, checkout payment and check-out, can help to find uncomfortable details in the service process, such as considering the address when choosing a hotel, worrying about false photos when choosing a room, fearing that it is inconvenient to change the visa and itinerary, and having doubts about privacy or hygiene after checking in.

user portrait

The user portrait presents the conclusion of the investigation and analysis in a graphical way. Most of them contain the following contents:

1 user type, briefly describing which main roles the system is designed for. The user type is usually located in the upper left corner of the portrait map.

User attributes, according to the needs of the design project, describe their demographic information, social identity, personality and lifestyle.

User stories describe the key decision-making ideas, main links and reactions of users when they do something.