WALK IN THE SHOESDEEPLY UNDERSTAND THE USER BY BEING THE USER FOR A WHILE

1

WHEN NEEDED RATIONALE

WALK IN THE SHOES

Immerses oneself in the same context and

do what the user normally does

Develops a deep understanding of the

user’s frustrations, delights, beliefs,

aspirations

Gives informed intuition from embodied

experience, is complementary to

observations

Is first hand information, so cannot be

filtered or interpreted by what others say

about users or what users self-report (such

as market research, focus groups)

2

I need to deeply

understand the

user’s pain

points

I want to feel

what the user

feels, see what

the user sees

ESSENCE POINTERS

WALK IN THE SHOES

Do what your users do, use attributes

to become a more realistic version of

your userE.g. when improving the hospital experience, become

a patient, lie in a hospital bed, sit in the waiting area

E.g. wear spectacles with greased-up glasses

when becoming a person with vision disabilities

Take pictures of what you go through,

zoom in both on frustrations as well as

moments of delight

Develop empathy for your user (you

can only truly appreciate and

understand the user if you see through

his eyes, feel with her heart). This is

different from sympathy

Reflect on your observations, discover

and capture the most surprising

3

Deeply

understand the

user by being the

user for a while

Sources of Inspiration: IDEO method cards; Stanford d-school