Replacing “Our” with “Our user”
This one advice has made me a better designer
In the design world, no, in every industry, we talk about empathy. We were taught to “Create user-centered design!”, “Step in their shoes!”, and “Think like our users!” I agree, 100 percent. Because if we can’t make a product that is useful and adds value to the users, what kind of business are we?
But here’s the thing: IT’S SO DAMN HARD!
Right? Some businesses probably don’t even care or do it poorly that their products later became known as “dark UX”, or tricky designs that make users do something that they didn’t mean to. Here are some examples:
(If you’d like to see more of those, check out Dark Patterns and this Reddit group.)
The problem with a lot of misleading and bad designs is that people look at their business goals way past the user goals. For instances, businesses create pop-up screens to collect customers’ emails; businesses send customers sales emails at least twice a week; I had to call customers during midnight to confirm store pick-up orders because the business “assumed” the customers were awake.
Do you see the flaws there? Many companies just assume that their customers want every single piece of their news. However let’s say if you were the business owner but now you were a customer, would you want to see a pop-up screen when you just landed the homepage? Would you want to receive mass marketing emails? Would you want someone to call you during midnight and ask you if you’ve placed the order? Probably not.
This reminds me of the endowment effect in psychology, which is a phenomenon that people tend to ascribe more value to the things that they own. How much would you sell a mug versus how much would you buy a mug? ($15 vs. $5 for me).
So, this gets me thinking: “How to make a good design that balances the business goal and the user goal?” Or simply, “What makes a good design?”
Kathy Sierra, the author of “Badass: Making Users Awesome”, gives me a brand new perspective to this question. She writes, “Instead of asking questions about your brand, try replacing “our” with “our user”.”
Replace “Our” with “Our user”
Here are some examples she gives:
- How can we get more comments and shares on our posts? -> How can we help our users get more comments and shares?
- Define our mission statement. -> Define our user’s mission statement.
- How can we get more people talking about our brand? -> How can we help our user get more people talking about his or her personal brand?
Make your users feel good about themselves and upgrade your users. That’s. It. The reason why your customers say “I love this product” is not just because you’ve helped them reach their goals, but you’ve also made them awesome.
Now let’s get back to where we start. Instead of thinking “step in your user’s shoes” which sounds vague and directionless, think how we can make our users proud of themselves. This way, we reach both the user and business goals at the same time.
Design with empathy, yes, but also do something that makes your user a better user.
Don’t create a better Facebook, create a better connector.
