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Design Design Thinking Understanding Your User’s “As-Is” Scenario Identifying the Opportunity

Darko Stanimirov
Darko Stanimirov
9,003 Points
Posted by Darko Stanimirov
Darko Stanimirov
9,003 Points

How can we know our users pain points without user testing?

I see that the example for the Journey Map is showing different pain points that are very specific, like unclear button text and similar issues that would come up during the user testing. But how exactly can we know what pain points our user is experiencing without doing the actual testing?

Darko Stanimirov
Darko Stanimirov
9,003 Points
Darko Stanimirov
Darko Stanimirov
9,003 Points

That makes sense Jeff. Thanks for explaining it :)

1 Answer

Jeff Sanders
PLUS
Jeff Sanders
Courses Plus Student 9,503 Points
Jeff Sanders
Jeff Sanders
Courses Plus Student 9,503 Points

You bring up a great question and I feel pretty confident in saying that you can never be sure without user testing. You can make assumptions but that will only take you so far.

I think this series is fantastic for designing solutions for existing products but must be adapted for new products that have yet to be tested. If you haven't heard of a design sprint, I'd do some research on them. They are a great way to pinpoint and validate high risk, high reward solutions--especially for those that don't yet exist and have not been tested. Some of the exercises in a design sprint are similar to those demonstrated in this series. Design sprints traditionally take 5 days to complete. On the 5th day your team tests its assumptions on actual users via a prototype that you built on the 4th day..