{"id":1317,"date":"2010-03-24T07:52:28","date_gmt":"2010-03-24T14:52:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/?p=1317"},"modified":"2010-03-24T07:52:28","modified_gmt":"2010-03-24T14:52:28","slug":"how-to-characterize-users-and-usage-to-design-better-products-and-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/how-to-characterize-users-and-usage-to-design-better-products-and-services\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Characterize Users and Usage to Design Better Products and Services"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>At Blink we create behavioral profiles, along with key scenarios, to characterize users and usage.<\/p>\n

If you have been around system design in the past several years, you have no doubt encountered personas: bright, whole, wholesome (and entirely fictional) users complete with family members, college degrees, cars, and recreational interests.<\/p>\n

Personas are created to help project team members understand and empathize with users. This, in turn, should help drive better design decisions\u2014creating features that will do the best job possible in meeting user needs. Unfortunately, there is a temptation with personas to focus on the personalizing details, giving less emphasis to the behavioral characteristics and motivations that should drive system design. Where this happens, personas have little value.<\/p>\n

At Blink we prefer to characterize users in terms of behavioral profiles, devoid of personalizing details. But we aren\u2019t opposed to telling a story to get project stakeholders to empathize with users\u2014the difference is we accomplish this by using contextual details in key scenarios.<\/p>\n

User Research is Key<\/strong><\/p>\n

The starting point for our process is user research. This involves going out and observing what users are doing and why. The particular methodologies chosen depend on several factors such as the specific research questions and the available budget.<\/p>\n

Through user research we gain an understanding of how tasks are currently performed, what the barriers are, and where the opportunities lie. These data go directly into creating the behavioral profiles and key scenarios.<\/p>\n

Example Behavioral Profiles<\/strong><\/p>\n

To create behavioral profiles, we look at patterns of motivations, goals, and usage. For example, let\u2019s say we are creating a photo management and sharing system. We might have a behavioral profile for “Family Photographer” and one for “Photography Enthusiast.” Behavioral profiles can be captured in table form, with cells for goals, motivations, and usage patterns.<\/p>\n

Family Photographer<\/strong><\/p>\n