Ask, “What Would the User Do?”

Ask, “What Would the User Do?” (You Are Not the User)

 

WE ALL TEND TO ASSUME THAT OTHER PEOPLE THiNK LiKE US. But they
don’t. Psychologists call this the false consensus bias. When people think or act
differently from us, we’re quite likely to label them (subconsciously) as defec-
tive in some way.
This bias explains why programmers have such a hard time putting themselves
in the users’ position. Users don’t think like programmers. For a start, they spend
much less time using computers. They neither know nor care how a computer
works. This means they can’t draw on any of the battery of problem-solving
techniques so familiar to programmers. They don’t recognize the patterns and
cues programmers use to work with, through, and around an interface.
The best way to find out how a user thinks is to watch one. Ask a user to
complete a task using a similar piece of software to what you’re developing.
Make sure the task is a real one: “Add up a column of numbers” is OK; “Cal-
culate your expenses for the last month” is better. Avoid tasks that are too spe-
cific, such as “Can you select these spreadsheet cells and enter a SUM formula
below?”—there’s a big clue in that question. Get the user to talk through his or
her progress. Don’t interrupt. Don’t try to help. Keep asking yourself, “Why is
he doing that?” and “Why is she not doing that?”
The first thing you’ll notice is that users do a core of things similarly. They try
to complete tasks in the same order—and they make the same mistakes in the
same places. You should design around that core behavior. This is different
from design meetings, where people tend to listen when someone says, “What
if the user wants to…?” This leads to elaborate features and confusion over
what users want. Watching users eliminates this confusion.

 

You’ll see users getting stuck. When you get stuck, you look around. When
users get stuck, they narrow their focus. It becomes harder for them to see
solutions elsewhere on the screen. It’s one reason why help text is a poor solu-
tion to poor user interface design. If you must have instructions or help text,
make sure to locate it right next to your problem areas. A user’s narrow focus
of attention is why tool tips are more useful than help menus.
Users tend to muddle through. They’ll find a way that works and stick with
it, no matter how convoluted. It’s better to provide one really obvious way of
doing things than two or three shortcuts.
You’ll also find that there’s a gap between what users say they want and what
they actually do. That’s worrying, as the normal way of gathering user require-
ments is to ask them. It’s why the best way to capture requirements is to watch
users. Spending an hour watching users is more informative than spending a
day guessing what they want.