Lean UX, 3rd Edition

Chapter 8. Box 4: User Outcomes and Benefits

Figure 8-1. Box 4 of the Lean UX Canvas: User Outcomes and Benefits

Despite the proliferation of Agile techniques like user stories, the user and their goals often become lost in the lengthy debates over features, designs, and technical implementations. Empathy is at the heart of great products and services. Designers often have been responsible for advocating for the user from an empathetic point of view. As we now know, this is not uniquely a designer’s responsibility. To achieve broader shared understanding of users and a deeper sense of empathy for what they are trying to achieve, we ask our teams to declare their assumptions about what users are trying to do, in the form of user outcomes and benefits.

Before starting Box 4, you may be asking yourself, what’s the difference between business outcomes, customer outcomes, and user outcomes? Good question. Let’s take a look at an example in which you work for a company that makes corporate expense tracking software.

The business outcome the company is trying to achieve is to acquire more customers, retain the ones they already have, and increase monthly software subscription revenue.

The customers of this company—other companies who buy the expense tracking software for their employees—are trying to improve the efficiency of their accounting teams, reduce payment of expenses that are ...