User Needs Statement
User Needs Statement summarizes who the user is, what the specific need is, and why important
The User Needs Statement helps the team think about what they want their solution to do, not how. Aligns the design team around a specific and actionable problem.
What is a User Needs Statement?
The User Needs Statement is an actionable problem statement that summarizes who the user is, the user’s specific needs, and why that need is essential. The User Needs Statement is completed during the Define phase of the Design process to help define the problem from the customer’s perspective.
The User should describe a specific persona or customer group. The user should have been the focus of your team’s ethnographic research, interviewing, and empathy activities. It is helpful to use a tagline or catchphrase that helps to characterize who the user is.
The Need should be real and representative of specific persona’s or customer group’s needs. The need should never be stated as a solution. Reminder: In some cases, the user may not always know what they need. In this case, the design team needs to look for the user’s unstated need, or unconscious desires.
The Insight, or Goal, should be rooted in empathy. The insight should detail what the user will accomplish once their need is satisfied. As you articulate your insights, think about the user’s hopes, fears, challenges, and motivations.
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A User Needs Statement (also known as a Point of View Statement) is an actionable problem statement that summarizes who the user is, what the user’s specific need is, and why that need is important. This topic is a core concept of applying creative problem-solving through design thinking. To learn more about design, please visit our Introduction to Design Thinking Course.
The Design Thinking course teaches a creative problem-solving that will give any professional an advantage in their industry or career.
- Designers or Product Development professionals that are motivated to bring innovative new products and services to their business and customers.
- Consultants who want to offer their clients a model for applying creative problem-solving to help address business challenges.
- Human Resource professionals seeking to develop more human-centered solutions to support workforce members while driving higher levels of employee engagement.
- Members of Leadership who are wishing to gain competitive advantage by differentiating their business’s products and services.
- Individuals or Teams that are searching for new ways to solve complex problems by placing the customer’s needs at the center of their solutions.
This course will help expose the learner to various design thinking tools and mental models – all with the emphasis on innovating through creative problem-solving.
Our objective is to provide the learner with practical tools for applying a versatile 3-step design thinking process within their organizations. Through this framework, the learner will be able to reframe problems from the customer’s perspective. With this perspective in mind, the learner will drive improvements around the customer experience using tools such as deep-dive interview, journey mapping, empathy mapping, and rapid prototyping.
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