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How to spark deep behavioural change by considering your users the protagonists of their own stories
How to use the storytelling principles of character and conflict to better understand the motivations and needs of your users.
User-centred thinking and design is understood in many different ways. To some, it simply means putting yourself in the user’s shoes to make decisions, although this often inevitably means projecting your own opinions onto the idea of a ‘user’ and often ignoring data or research. To others more familiar with the process, it can mean using user research, data, and user testing, to form personas, journeys, and pull together a much broader picture of who the user is, how they behave, and what their pain points are.
The second approach is fairly standard in product design. You use insight available to form a better idea of what the user is struggling with, what they might want in terms of features, and which bits of your product, service, or website they find usable or frustrating.
This is a very conventional and iterative approach to product design, which focuses on the user, and puts their needs first.
Very often though, this approach, whilst great at identifying issues with specific or nuanced elements of your product at a user level, fails to provide us with any wider insight to deliver bigger impact changes or features.
So, how can we deliver bigger impact changes that more deeply affect user behaviour, beyond just fixing or addressing their frustrations. What fundamental and radical changes or features can we offer to our users, that will not only provide them with a much richer experience, but also create a fierce passion for your brand, or deep, habitual support, or connection with what you do?
To do this I believe that we need to take a different approach instead of simply prioritising a list of fixes and features using impact vs effort based on research, data, and analysis. We need to understand our users on a much deeper and more intimate level. We need to understand them as they see themselves, as we all see ourselves in our own lives. As the heroes of their own story.
