Capturing user needs to inform your design

Method 1: User archetypes

What

A user archetypes represents groups of users with shared behaviors.

Why

Archetypes can help us better understand product or service users who share the same behaviors and core desires. Unlike personas, user archetypes focus on behaviors rather than individuals.

How to do it

1. Gather findings from other research activities such as:

• Contextual inquiry
• Stakeholder interviews
• User surveys
• Analysis of customer data

Organize them in a way that is easy to review.

2. Analyze and create an affinity map of your research findings to identify patterns. Make note of;

• Frequently observed goals
• Motivations
• Behaviors
• Pain points
• Potential harms like lack of consent, physical danger, and being retraumatized 

These patterns help form the foundation of each user archetype.

3. Create sets of user archetypes based on how you believe people will use your solution and the journeys they are on. These archetypes typically get titles, like "the marketing specialist." They will also include narratives that describe motivations in a relatable way.

Time required

30 minutes to 1 hour per user archetype

Method 2: Personas

What

A persona is a fictional, research-based representations of user types. They include demographic information like gender and age. One profile usually serves as a representation of a target audience.

Why

Personas help you make design decisions based on real people, grounded in their goals, behaviors, and pain points. They often focus on how users meet their goals, based on context, beliefs, and needs.

How to do it

1. Gather research from activities like contextual inquiry or stakeholder interviews in a way that is easy to review.
2. Create a set of user types based on how you believe people will use your solution. These user types typically get titles such as "data administrators" rather than "those who submit data". Review the user types with "who" questions such as: Who is included? Who is being overlooked? Who is deciding who is included?
3. Analyze your records for patterns as they relate to the user types. For each type, note:
   • Frequently observed goals
   • Motivations
   • Behaviors
   • Pain points and potential harms like lack of consent, physical danger, and being retraumatized.
4. Pair recurring goals, behaviors, pain points, and potential harms with the user types. Give each archetype a name and a fictional account of their day.
5. Add a photo of someone who fits the description. Avoid an image of a person you’ve actually interviewed and who may be recognized.
6. Link your personas to the research that inspired them. This is useful when researchers want to challenge the way a persona stereotypes a user.

Time required

2 to 3 hours for each persona

Method 3: User scenarios

What

A user scenario tells a story about how users interact with your product, service, or website. User scenarios provide context for personas' experience in a narrative form.

Why

User scenarios help you communicate a design idea by telling a story about a specific interaction for a specific user. Create user scenarios to identify:

• A user's motivations for using your product, service, or website
• The user's expectations and goals

User scenarios help you consider how: 

• A user's needs might vary depending on their context
• A diverse group of users in the same scenario might have different needs.

By constructing user scenarios, you can help answer questions about the accessibility of your product, service, or website.

How to do it

1. Determine a few personas or user types to focus on. Consider what scenarios might be the most critical for each user.For example, in what scenarios would users face limited accessibility?
2. For each user, list out their:
   • Goals
   • Motivations
   • Context or environment in which they are interacting with your product, service, or website
3. Put the details you came up with in step 2 into a story format that includes:
   • Who they are (persona or user type)
   • Why they are using your site (motivations)
   • Where they are (context)
   • What they need to do (goal)
   • How they go about accomplishing the goal (tasks)
4. The more realistic details you add, the richer and more useful your story becomes for helping to understand the user's behaviors.
   • Share the user scenarios that you have written with the user group and other team members for validation, feedback, and refinement.
   • Examine your product, service, or website using these user scenarios. Identify opportunities to make adjustments that would improve users' experiences.

Time required

1 to 3 hours