Project Selection Process: User Need Decision-Making

9th December, 2023

Introduction

Two of the Digital & Service Design Team’s principles focus on the importance of understanding and basing decision-making upon user need and insight:

Principle No. 1: Design Services Based on User Needs

Never rely on assumptions. Find out who the users of the service are or would be and why they need the service. Talk to users and let their needs guide our design. We’re building services and solutions, not just products and websites. Solutions must meet evidenced user needs.

Principle No. 3: Make Decision Based on Insight

We’ll use resources like user interviews, metrics, data insight and research to guide our decision-making. Again, don’t rely on assumptions and use all the available evidence. We’ll use creative ways of finding insight to understand needs if evidence doesn’t exist.

Given the stated importance of understanding user needs in the project decision-making process, a framework is clearly required to assist in that exercise to efficiently and accurately ascertain whether a potential project is founded on a clear understanding of user needs.

The Power of Understanding User Needs

We have encouraged staff in a recent document entitled ‘The Power of Understanding User Needs’ that “getting an initial understanding of user needs needn’t be complex”. That document called on those proposing projects to consider what we call the Three UI’s:

1. User Issue - A successful digital and service design project should be founded on a genuine and clear understanding of user needs, pain-points, and problems. Without clarity, we could be working on the wrong thing, or worse yet, something that has no use or relevance in the real world.
2. User Identity - Thinking of your audience as ‘everyone’ is a great way to fail in designing a product or service, as it removes all constraints meaning that focused work becomes impossible. When a product or service is aimed at ‘everyone’, valid arguments for every feature and platform can be made. Instead, clarity on who ‘typical’ or ‘early adopter’ users will be is required, including, who they are, where do they come from, and what tasks are they trying to accomplish.
3. User Impact - You may have a clear understanding or who your users are, and what they need, and what their currently ‘problems are’, but how big is the impact? Is the development of a solution a ‘nice-to-have’, or will it fundamentally and positively change users working or personal experience? Will a product or service cause friction, or will it simplify their life? Does it impact only a few individuals, or will a successful project have wide ranging reach and impact?

Given that we have encouraged the organisation to think through the Three UI’s as they design and propose potential digital projects, the framework the Digital & Service Design Team will use for decision-making will largely focus on the same aspects.

User-Needs Decision Making Framework

	Score 1 to 5 (1: poor, 2: fair, 3: adequate, 4: good, 5: excellent)	Comments
User Issue
To what extent is the problem facing users clearly defined?
To what extent have specific user pain-points or challenges been identified?
To what extent has user research been conducted to identify the problem, or, to support the understanding of the problem?
To what extent is there data or insights from user research that back-up or support the problem statement?
User Identity
To what extent are the user personas well-defined and described?
To what extent are the key characteristics of the target users clearly outlined?
To what extent does the proposal demonstrate how it aligns with the goals and needs of the identified user personas?
To what extent is there evidence that user needs and preferences have been considered in the project proposal?
User Impact
To what extent has the potential impact on individual users been assessed?
To what extent are there clear benefits outlined for individual users if this project is implemented?
To what extent has the proposal considered the collective scale of the user problem and the potential solution?
To what extent are there insights into how the project could benefit a larger user community or population?
	Score 1 to 5 (1: negligible, 2: limited, 3: moderate, 4: significant, 5: transformational)	Comments
What is the individual user impact of the problem and / or solution?
What is the collective user impact of the problem and / or solution?

You can download this table as a Word Document

Download Table

The Process

The framework above is intended to be used formally by the User Research Lead, or, by another member of the Digital & Service Design Team when making project decisions as they relate to user needs. However, although used formally for that purpose, the framework can also be used informally by the ‘project coach’ when coming alongside future or potential projects.

The framework also has attached to it a scoring system. However, the intention of the scoring system is not to determine a threshold of what is and isn’t acceptable. Instead, the scoring should fuel comments and debate about the need, scale, and merits of potential projects, to help further refine projects proposals, and to identify user research activities that the project may require if agreed upon.

For more information or help in how to create and use user journeys, email Steff Berrow.