4.1 Create user need statements
Turn your insight statements into user need statements.
This step will take you around 2 hours.
🧙♂️ Tip: Do this step within 24 hours of creating insight statements.
That way the insights will still be fresh.
🧙♂️ Tip: Use the annotated examples of three user need statements to help you.
Have it available to look at as you write your statements.
🛠️ Tools
The whiteboard you used in Guide 3.
A note taking tool like Google Docs or MS Word.
A presentation tool like Google Sheets or MS Powerpoint.
🧍🏿 Solo or collaborate 👫?
You can do this on your own or with anyone you created insight statements with.
👣7 Steps
1. Read about user need statements
👬 Read the introduction to user need statements again.
🔗🔗 Watch User need statements in Design Thinking.
2. Write user need statements
Use your note taking tool or this template to jot your statements down.
Read the first insight statement. Ask yourself ‘what need does this reveal’?
Write each user need in the 3-part statement format:
As a… [user type e.g. ‘person seeking mental health support’]
I need/want/expect to… [need]
So that… [goal or insight into why it's important to that person]
Examples of good and bad user need statements.
Good
As a person experiencing mental distress I need information on my support options to be easy to read and feel supportive, so that I don't get frustrated, overwhelmed or have to struggle to understand my support options. (Good because the need clearly belongs to the user and statement articulates their hopes and fears.)
As an educator I need to access high quality LGBT+ curriculum resources so that I feel confident I am teaching my pupils well. (Good because it articulates the user's need and their motivations in a way that is easy to understand.)
Bad
As a young person looking for help and support with my mental health I need an online, hosted chat room to help me feel better. (Bad because the need is phrased as a solution. Perhaps what they need is to be able to connect with other young people in a similar situation so they feel less alone.)
As a provider of LGBT+ support services I need our services to be delivered at a time and place that suits our users so that they don't have a bad experience of our service. (Bad because it confuses who has the need and the insight lacks empathy for the user.)
Keep asking yourself:
What does the user care about?
Why is this important to the user?
What emotion is driving the user’s behaviour?
What does the user stand to gain?
3. Critique your statements
Review your statements. Be willing to iterate it and alter the language. Check that you are:
Thinking about users’ needs as verbs, not nouns
Talking about needs and not ways to meet those needs
Capturing nuances, and being specific where you can
4. Group your statements
Look at your statements. See if there are 2-3 high level themes that they fit into. Write down those themes.
You can do this after step 5 if you prefer.
5. Copy statements to your template deck
👬 Copy the template deck if you haven't already.
Add your statements to your deck, one per slide.
Give each statement a short title. This makes them memorable.
Add a theme to the title if you haven’t yet done so. Check your themes if you have.
Organise your statements by theme and from general to specific, or in any order that makes sense to you.
Number your statements. This makes them easier to find and remember.
6. Write acceptance criteria
This is an optional step. Your user need statements will be good enough even if you don’t do this.
Acceptance criteria are a list of outcomes that you use as a checklist to confirm that your service has done its job and is meeting that user need.
They’re often written as a list that begins with ‘it’s done when the user…’
7. Show your user need statements to your users
This is an optional step. Your user need statements should be good enough even if you don’t do this.
Show your statements to a user, one at a time. Ask them how each statement feels. Not every user will agree with each statement. That's ok.
Afterwards show them all the statements together and ask them to rank them for importance.
Record what they say and do.
Repeat this with 3-4 more users.
Edit, remove, re-sort your user need statements based on what you learnt.
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