UX For Dummies

Chapter 3

Determining Your Users

In This Chapter

Understanding the role the user plays in UX design

Defining an approach to prioritizing user types

Creating a compelling portrait of a sample user

Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it.

— Peter Drucker

The UX process is, by definition, a user-centric approach to solving business problems and achieving business goals. It requires that the entire project team, who is responsible for the UX, has empathy for target users, understanding who they are, what they want, and what they need. In addition to these things, the team needs an understanding of how experiences may be designed to better support the target users and further the organization’s goals. User understanding will help ensure the way you sell your goods reflects the ways that people want to buy them rather than being the easiest or cheapest way to put those goods online.

In the world of UX, you are designing business interactions from the viewpoint of the user, not solely from that of the business. Understanding the user is arguably the most important step in the UX methodology: Without good user understanding, ...