A New Source Code

A young boy in a rural village, toiled in the fields under the scorching sun. He longed for an escape, a thrill – anything that would break him out the crushing grip of routine.

One day, a girl that he secretly loves, is kidnapped and taken to a far away village. Hearing the news, he immediately hatches a plan to save his sweetheart and fall happily in love. He finds the wise old man in the village and begs him to teach him how to fight. The old man grudgingly agrees, and begins testing him and teaching him the ways of the ancient warriors of the village. Slowly, our young hero learns how to fight and how to control his emotions.

Eventually, feeling confident, he goes to find and fight the kidnappers in the distant village. He finds them and confronts them, demanding that they release his sweetheart. The kidnappers laugh and humiliate him. He challenges them to a fight, with the winner getting to keep the girl. The kidnappers accept this deal and they proceed to fight. They gang up on him – 3 to 1, and for a moment it looks like he will not have the skill to defeat them all. But knowing that his damsel in distress is waiting for him, he fights with a force even he didn’t think he was capable of. Finally, he defeats them and saves the girl. They return home where he is crowned a hero and they fall in love.

This is Joseph Campbell’s famed monomyth: a version of this story has been told in every culture around the globe. It has shown up in Star Wars, Pixar movies, videogames, even marketing commercials and more. Could it be the key to understanding all user behavior?

I believe so. From it we can see five key drives in our hero. And they spell the acronym:

F A B Le D

What do you think they are?

How would you explain the following…

Imagine seeing hordes of teenagers, sleeping on sidewalks to ensure that they get Miley Cyrus tickets.

Or imagine watching patients fly across the country to see different doctors to get a “better” diagnosis.

Or my personal favorite: listening to frustrated employees complain about their job,  then watch them get drunk on the weekends and then show up to work bright and early on Monday morning.

What does each person want?

They want their needs met.

You don’t need a skilled researcher to tell you that. But what exactly are the needs of teenager? What are the needs of the patient? What are the needs of the employee? And finally, how do you empathize and understand these completely different groups of people if you haven’t done any of these things?

The skilled researcher understands with empathy and compassion what is needed in each situation. This is difficult, yet not impossible. But it is something we must learn to do, if we seek to make change happen.

This is the beginning in a series of posts about user research, empathy and compassion: why it’s necessary, how to develop it, some pitfalls to look out for, when you actually have understood your user and more..

Here’s to understanding empathy and compassion in 2019.

 

 

“User” is a funny term. It springs to mind the obvious definition: people who “use” things. The Oxford dictionary says that users are: persons who use or operate something . So what does that mean – they use things? What kinds of things? Websites, apps and the like? Toys? Heroin?

I want to talk about users in the context of any business. Who is the end user or customer and why should you create for them?

The real question is why do we need to understand our users or the customers? Isn’t it obvious that they should think like us? After all we are creating products for them, they should immediately bow and kiss our feet, no?

This blog will be about the quest to understand the user/customer/”insert whatever handle you want here”and what would delight them. More importantly, how do we develop the skills like empathy and compassion that allow you to get a better understanding of them.

Also, I’ll be thinking out loud here so feel free to let me know where my thoughts are flawed. I think we both can grow if we open a dialogue to each other and see what happens.