User requirements

cxpartners gather user requirements to help build up a picture of how a user views a product or process

It sounds simple, but when you make sure that a service meets their expectations and requirements, users can complete their tasks more easily and feel more satisfied with the outcome. This can lead to dramatic increases in conversion.

What are task interviews?

TIP: Remembering usersPersonas can help your team to incorporate your user needs at all points in a project.Task interviews are interviews aimed at understanding users’ behaviour and preferences when performing a certain task (such as booking a holiday).

In a task interview the user is asked to recall a specific task that he or she has completed in the recent past. We prefer recall (‘what did you do when…?’) to speculation (‘what would you do if…?’) because there is a huge body of evidence to show that users’ speculation on how they might behave in future has no relation to how they actually behave in real life. Previous behaviour is a far better predictor of future behaviour.

Usefulness of task interviews

Task interviews are vital in understanding how users expect to use sites, where sites can be improved and how well users will respond to new or amended features.

How we make a difference

Our task interview technique encourages users to talk about their feelings as well as their behaviour – so we can understand users’ attitudes. We also ask users to go over a task repeatedly, which helps them to remember tiny (important) details.

Other ways of discovering user requirements

The techniques we use to understand business requirements are also useful for getting under the skin of user requirements.

For example, call centres are a rich resource for understanding users better. We can hear the conversations people want to have with companies and the language they use to do so.

This understanding helps us to order processes better and offer the right support along the way.

cxpartners also observe and listen to customers in the real world. We’ll watch at ticket machines, check-in desks, shop counters and anywhere else where a customer transacts with a company. We’ll be looking for barriers people have in completing a task, and the things that shouldn’t be changed, in order to help perfect the user experiences we create.

Take a look on our approaches to ethnography to see ways to uncover user requirements in more detail.

Next steps:
We’d be happy to talk to you about user requirements and how they help your brand communicate more effectively with your customers. Call us on 0117 946 3930 or email info@cxpartners.co.uk.

You may be interested in how we gather business requirements to use along side user requirements too.