Web Usability

“You are not your user” is one of the fundamental principles of UX.

The benefits of this simple principle has been well argued for [52 Weeks of UX: You Are Not Your User], but few people realize that if you misunderstand it, you are in danger of hurting your users, your design, your product and ultimately your company.

How do you prevent this from happening? You need to ask yourself “The Question”.

The Principle

But first, the principle behind “You are not your user” is simply this:

If you want people to like and be able to use your product efficiently, you can’t reliably ask yourself what you like and how you want it to work and make your design decisions based on that.

As you have a better understanding of your product’s inner workings than your user and also have emotional stake invested in your product (if you love what you do), you simply aren’t a good representative to speak for what your users like, want and need.

The Question

Very humbling. However, if you don’t get what question you should ask yourself after reading this statement, alarm bells should go off all over the place (sadly, they never do. Someone should seriously get that fixed).

The question you need to ask yourself (and then others) is:

“OK, since I clearly don’t know what my users like, want or need – how do I find out?”

Too often, I’ve seen developers, designers and managers get the first part of the principle, and then, armed with this new credo, proceed make assumptions about what the users want without getting the proper data. The result? Usually a product that nobody likes that no one is able to use efficiently - not even you.

News flash: you are not better off now than when you trusted your own taste, now you’re just guessing.

If you ever heard someone triumphantly state “You might not like it, but our users would!” in a design meeting without any shred of evidence backing it up, you’ve been there. And if you ever made that statement yourself, you should really listen to the next part.

If you don’t have credible data on your users likes, wants and needs – just go with what you like, want and need. Seriously, forget all about “You are not your user” until you are ready to ask the question. You won’t create the best product for your users, but at least you are less likely to create an epic UX failure – like “Microsoft Bob”.

The Answer

So what is the answer to the question? How do you find out what your users like, want and need? Well, I’m glad you asked, because now we’re getting somewhere.

Luckily, the science of usability is shock-full of methods aimed at answering this fundamental question:

• Ask them. E-mail them surveys, poll them, conduct user interviews with them (but be very aware that what they say that they want, is not necessarily what they actually want).
• Observe them. Test your design on them, conduct field studies where they work to better understand the environment and context  that your product will be used in.
• Get them involved. Get a couple of good, representative users interacting closely with your team, but beware that they too will become subject to “You are not your user” over time as they become more involved in the design and understand more of the inner workings of your product.

So before you tell a developer, designer or manager that “You are not your user”, make sure to give them the question and answer as well. They will thank you for it and so will their users, employees and board – or at least they should, but if you are looking for praise, you probably should have picked another field than UX in the first place…