What, so what, what now?

I use What, So What, Now What to explain the user research process. It’s about going through three stages, one at a time, pausing to reflect and prioritise after each stage:

• What?
  What happened? What did you notice? What facts or observations stood out?
• So What?
  Why is that important? What patterns, conclusions or hypotheses are emerging?
• Now What?
  What actions make sense?

Will Myddelton: What. so what, what now?

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Nonlinear human behaviour

“In science, when human behavior enters the equation, things go nonlinear. That’s why Physics is easy and Sociology is hard.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson on Twitter

Thick data (deep insight) versus big data

“Not everything valuable is measurable.”

“Quantification bias: The unconscious belief of valuing the measurable over the immeasurable”

Tricia Wang

Jobs to be done

The Jobs-to-Be-Done framework is a representations of user needs born out of qualitative user research, such as field studies, interviews, and discount usability testing. It involves identifying for which goals customers “hire” your product (and, ideally, also finding out if there are competitor products that these users are ready to “fire”). Armed with this understanding, a product team can think about the nature of the users’ core problems and needs from a fresh perspective, and devise product features that solve that main need as best as possible.

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For example, if a traditional task analysis unearthed that delivery drivers frequently needed to print out directions that showed how to navigate between each stop on their daily route, it’s likely that the design team would focus on making it as easy as possible for the drivers to format and print the directions; however, a JTBD-focused approach would focus on the delivery driver’s “job” (that is, getting navigation guidance while driving), and would look for solutions to that problem (such as a GPS system providing voice guidance).

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Oftentimes, we hear JTBD advocates referring to the famous Theodore Levitt quote, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.” Rather than focusing on a list of features for a product, the JTBD framework forces designers to think about outcomes: would users be able to (happily and easily) complete the job they “hired” the product for? Does this solution provide a better outcome than existing ones?

From: Personas vs. Jobs-to-Be-Done by Page Laubheimer

 

 

 

Persona attributes

Most well-crafted personas include a multitude of information such as:Demographic details, such as age, marital status, or income:

• Personal details, such as a short biography, photograph, and name
• Attitudinal and/or cognitive details, such as information about the persona’s mental model, pain points, and feelings about the tasks that need to be accomplished
• Goals and motivations for using the product
• Behavioral details about how the persona tends to act when using the product

Personas vs JTBD by Page Laubheimer

Most well-crafted personas include a multitude of information such as:

• Demographic details, such as age, marital status, or income
• Personal details, such as a short biography, photograph, and name
• Attitudinal and/or cognitive details, such as information about the persona’s mental model, pain points, and feelings about the tasks that need to be accomplished
• Goals and motivations for using the product
• Behavioral details about how the persona tends to act when using the product

Personas vs JTBD by Page Laubheimer

Replacing The User Story With The Job Story

Summed up, the problem with user stories is that it’s too many assumptions and doesn’t acknowledge causality. When a task is put in the format of a user story ( As a [type of user], I want [some action], so that [outcome] ) there’s no room to ask ‘why’ — you’re essentially locked into a particular sequence with no context.

[Suggested job sytory]

We frame every design problem in a Job, focusing on the triggering event or situation, the motivation and goal, and the intended outcome:
When _____ , I want to _____ , so I can _____ .
For example: When an important new customer signs up, I want to be notified, so I can start a conversation with them.

Alan Klement: Replacing the User Story with the Job Story