Apple 2 manual Involve Users in the Design Process, Define Your Audience, Analyze Tasks

C H A P T E R 1

Newton and Its Users

Involve Users in the Design Process

The best way to make sure your product meets the needs of your target audience is to show it to the kinds of people you hope will buy it. Do they understand what it’s for and what to do with it? Can they use it? Can they keep track of where they are? Does it help them? You can do this during every phase of the design process to help reveal what works about your product as well as what needs improvement.

When you give people an opportunity to use your product or a mock-up of it, they will inevitably find some undiscovered flaws. You can implement significant changes to your product during its evolution and thereby save yourself lots of time and money and save your users from frustration. By identifying and focusing on users’ needs and experiences, you can create products that are easier to assemble, learn, and use. These improvements can translate into competitive advantages, increased sales, and enhanced customer satisfaction.

Define Your Audience

There are several steps to involving users in your design process. The first step, done at the beginning of a project, is to define the users and then do an analysis of the target audience. You want to determine what these people are like, how they might use a product like yours, if they have any similar products, and what features they would like to see in your product. By doing some research on your target audience, you can find out if what you’re including in a product is desirable and useful.

Analyze Tasks

The second step is to analyze the tasks people will be doing with your product. You need to do a task analysis for each task you anticipate that your users will do. Look at how they perform similar tasks without a Newton.

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