Observing the User Experience, 2nd Edition

Chapter 9

Field VisitsLearning from Observation

Let’s say you wanted to design a new, better showerhead—one that would really improve people’s experience of bathing, without changing what they already like about it. Keeping clean is one of those seemingly universal behaviors that nonetheless means very different things to people. Where would you start?

You have probably taken at least a few showers in your life. So have all your friends and your family, too. You could design a showerhead based on how you and your friends take showers—but as we’ve seen elsewhere in this book, this kind of egocentric design can be a mistake. After all, the way you (or your friends) feel about showers might not be typical of the people you want to buy your hypothetical ...