Types of User Needs in Design (Design Course 2.4)

In this course, I use the term user needs to refer to those characteristics or qualities which, if present in an artifact, will result in user satisfaction or the closing of the gap in the user experience. In other words, these are the things that the user wants the artifact to have in order to be

satisfied. I cited the example from the car rental experience of the user need that the car rental service provides a vehicle that's consistent with the customer's preferred brand associations. That's an example of a user need. User needs in design are usually captured as verbal statements and usually in a list. For almost any artifact, you as the

designer can identify at least 30 distinct user needs. And there may be as many as 400 user needs. Here is a list of 66 user needs for an urban cart. And I want to use this example to illustrate a few key points about user needs. The first point I want to make is that

not all users will value every user need. For instance, there's a user need here that the cart work with with the user's bicycle. Those who don't use bicycles are not going to care at all about that user need. The The list of user needs is merely meant to capture all of the relevant issues or variables

that relate to the satisfaction of the user with the artifact. The second point I want to make about the user needs is that two user needs can in fact be contradictory. So, for instance, there's a need on on the list of cart needs that says that the user wants the device to be able to transport

transport all of his or her stuff in one trip. On the other hand, there's also a need that says that the cart can be easily lifted and moved while loaded. Depending on the solution that's devised, those two needs could be contradictory. The list of needs don't resolve the design challenges. Rather, that list is