Introduction to User Needs (Design Course 2.3)

Design is conceiving and giving form to artifacts that solve problems. Our design process has as its first step problem definition. And I've further divided problem definition into two pieces. One is crafting a statement that captures the top level objective or the top level problem that you're trying to solve. And I addressed that in another

video using the tool of the five W's. Today I want to focus on the second part of problem definition which is defining the user needs. Let me begin with some motivation. You've all heard me talk a lot about ice cream scoops. In fact, I've even gone out of my way to tell you the brand of

the ice cream scoop that I like, the Xylus ice cream scoop. That ought to be our goal as designers, to get the users of our products to be so happy with their performance that they'll actually go to the public and tell people how much they like the product. But I've talked a lot about ice cream scoops.

I've talked a lot about physical objects in this in the video so far. And so today, I want to give you a little richer motivation. And I want to use a service example as the central illustration. A little while ago, I went with my family to my nephew's wedding in Michigan. So, we flew from Philadelphia

to Detroit on a Saturday morning and we emerged from the the gate. We walked into the terminal and we and I felt myself experiencing that dread you get when you face the complicated logistics of making the transition from air travel to local transportation. Our plan was to rent a car. Uh, it was fairly warm that

day. There was a lot of chaos in the terminal. My youngest son was was pulling on my arm saying, "Dad, I really need something to drink." And I was just trying to muddle through and and find a way to get to the rental car company, get our car, and get on our way.