The 5 Ws (and an H) of Designing for Users

As a product designer it is fundamental to your work to consider the way people use what you create. Success and failure of designs–and sometimes companies–depends on how well users like your product, how likely they are to keep using your product, and the value that what you're offering adds to their lives. But if product success is built on effective design, how do you start designing well for users? How do you move beyond aesthetic preference and bias and begin to design products that are intentionally geared toward the goals of your users? Designing for good user experiences begins with empathy and to gain that perspective let's begin to look at design by asking: who? what? when? where? why? and how? Below are a list of questions to consider when planning your design process.

Who?

Who are you designing for?

Who do you want your design to reach?

Who will be using your application or website?

Who do you want to use your product?

What?

What are you going to design? What medium will you use?

What is the goal of your product? What do you want it to do? What do you want people to do with it?

What do you want to avoid?

What styles do you like? What inspires you? What are your lazy habits?

What are the constraints of your design project?

What styles are common? What do mainstream design systems do that would be familiar?

What do you want to change?

What difference does having your product make in a user's life?

What kind of information do you want to make accessible?

What assumptions does your design make? What level of familiarity of modern trends is required to make sense of your design? Does it make sense on its own?

When?

When will people use your product?

When do you want people to use your product?

Under what circumstances will your product be beneficial? Are there drawbacks to your design?

Where?

Where will people use your product? In public? In the private of their homes? With their kids? In the car?

Where is your product available? Online? In an app store? In a store?

Would your user have to go somewhere to get it?

Why?

Why should people use your product?

Why would someone find your product beneficial to them?

Why use your product vs not using it?

Why have you chosen certain styles? Why do they work well?

Why would your sibling use your product? Why would your parents? Why would your grandparents?

Why design a website vs a native mobile application?

How?

How quickly becomes a question of implementation based on your consideration and research into the former questions, but it's still valuable to consider before you start so you don't overlook key members of your target demographics.

How will people access my designs?

How will my color choices include those with color blindness?

How will a deaf or blind person's interaction with my product work? Will they feel equally included?

How is the product supposed to work?

How does this solution compare to other ideas?

How do you expect people to use your product? To what extent do you try to limit or channel user actions?

How might your design be interpreted by someone 20 years older than you? 20 years younger?

This is just a sample list of questions and there are countless more. What's important is not that you consider every question possible, but that you practice thinking through the kind of questions, contexts, perspectives, and expectations your users might have. Anticipation of user needs goes a long way toward making a more enjoyable and sustainable user experience. Don't sweat it if you can't anticipate everything. You can always solicit direct feedback to inform your design choices, but the more you engage in thinking like your end user and designing for their needs, the more successful your designs will be in building lasting connections between user and product.