The fundamentals of engaging with extreme users
This video and article were produced as part of the Understanding People module on the Digital Experience Design program at Hyper Island, Manchester.
When designing for people, the focus lies on understanding the user. Learning to interpret user expectations and needs has become an essential aspect of creating exceptional products and services. The most innovative companies don’t just stop at understanding the primary user, they’ll strive to understand the extreme users.
What are extreme users?
Paying close attention or even interviewing users, in particular, extreme users comes in at the ‘inspiration phase’ of the design process according to IDEO. Gathering data on extreme users usually happens by interviewing and gathering qualitative and quantitative data. Observing extreme users interacting with a product or service can also be beneficial.
Extreme users can be described as the people on either end of the spectrum of users of a product or service. The distribution of users of most products or services follows a bell curve with the mainstream users in the centre and remaining ‘extreme users’ on either side of the peak. Typically, extreme users need less or more of something to fulfil their needs and some will find workarounds to existing problems, unlike the average users.
Lead users are those of the extreme users who are at the high use end of the spectrum. They only make up a small proportion of the total user group but they are the people who make the greatest demands on design and often their needs are somewhat amplified. They can even act as early adopters without realising it. These users are knowledgable, proactive and willing to experiment. The friends or family of lead users turn to them for advice as a trustworthy opinion so harnessing the power of these users is powerful.
At the other end of the spectrum, those who don’t use the product or service at all are also important to address. Sometimes this group has a difficult time picking up new things especially technology. They might represent distrust in a product for example and if this is addressed then it will likely benefit the main user group too. Or if we’re talking about usability and this person can use it with ease, most others will also be able to pick it up.
Taking ‘universal design’ into consideration, another type of extreme user is one living with limitations either self-imposed or otherwise. It’s often useful to take into account how someone with different disabilities will interact with the product or service to maximise inclusivity and usability.
As a couple of examples; if tackling a brief on caffeine consumption, it would be worth interviewing those who drink on average 10 or more cups of coffee a day and those who never touch caffeine. Or if looking into banking for the under 30 age group, speaking to those who save 90% of their income and those who constantly live in their overdraft, could give valuable insights.
Why are extreme users useful for your research?
When considering the user's needs in design, it’s very easy for a designer to fall into the trap of designing for the first, average user they can think of. Bill Moddridge argues the benefits by saying that only by understanding the viewpoints of a full range of people is it possible to avoid the pitfall of designing for yourself. While observing extreme users may seem counter-intuitive at first, understanding extreme users is essential for improving the opportunity for innovation in a project. By taking the problem out of context, finding a fresh outlook can happen. Through speaking to the extreme users and identifying their amplified needs, it can help pull out more meaningful insights and thus gives the potential to push ideas in different directions that you wouldn’t have previously explored. This group of users can help spark creativity by introducing you to hacks and use cases you wouldn’t have previously imagined. In the hope of trying to please the mainstream, which is still a very diverse group, it’s all too easy to end up designing something generic and easy to replicate.
When recruiting people to interview, by targeting both the broad mainstream and those at the extremes on the spectrum the likelihood of success for the most number of people is increased. An idea that suits an extreme user is more likely to please the mainstream users too. By focusing on the extremes, you can find the highest priority issues. Most commonly, the high priority issue is what motivates people to buy this thing, and what is keeping them from buying this product?
It can also be argued that often the lead users within the extreme user's category are most in-tune with their needs, emotions and behaviours when using a product or service and can, therefore, articulate these better. This results in making for an easier and quicker interview. Instead of speaking to 30 people, by selecting a few extreme users carefully, you can have more in-depth conversations with them. Resulting in maximum insight for the minimum amount of time.
Consideration when working with extreme users
While the benefits of using extreme users in research can be advantageous, there are many important considerations to think about. It’s vital to be sensitive to certain extremes when interviewing them. Some extreme users might feel uncomfortable or embarrassed talking about the subject so it’s essential to make them feel welcome and inform them that their voices are very useful for the research. Or if interviewing extreme users based on their disability, for example, it’s important to be respectful and follow ethical interviewing etiquette such as asking for consent as a starting point.
When looking for extreme users to interview, one of the most difficult aspects can actually be identifying them in the first place. The participant identification, definition, recruitment and then interviews can be a time-consuming process. Subsequently, if using participant recruitment services, the cost of locating these extreme users might be higher.
A case study: Oxo Good Grips
The opportunity for engaging with extreme users can be demonstrated through the story of the invention of the Oxo Good Grips products. Sam Farber invented the kitchenware company Oxo when he saw his arthritic wife Betsy struggling to hold a normal vegetable peeler. It inspired Sam to start thinking about the question ‘Why do ordinary kitchen tools have to hurt your hands?’. Sam introduced a set of 14 Good Grip products and as it turns out, it wasn’t just his wife Betsy who wanted an easier, more comfortable kitchen tool to hold. While easy-grip kitchen tools sound like the norm nowadays, this wasn’t the case back in the 1990s. By engaging with the extreme user with a slight disability, Sam was able to design a product that was improved for the whole mainstream too and thus drove innovation in the field.
