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Humans not users

johannesippen.com

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Re: Humans not users

#21

Post by davidivadavid »

tensor wrote: post #16
davidivadavid wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and a lot of us marketers are scratching our heads when designers talk about "human-centric design" (i.e. making products by thinking about what people want, what marketers have been doing forever) as if it had really profound and new insights. But it's certainly a good approach so, it's worth promoting.

The goal is different though. In marketing the goal is "convince them to buy" or simply "get eyeballs." It's almost hostile to the users at times. The goal of UX is to help them get something done and make them happy. So while the techniques may share ground, the intent is completely different (and new).

That's confusing marketing with a subset of it (promotion/advertising).

Re: Humans not users

#22

Post by davidivadavid »

gumby wrote: post #15
davidivadavid wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and a lot of us marketers are scratching our heads when designers talk about "human-centric design" (i.e. making products by thinking about what people want, what marketers have been doing forever) as if it had really profound and new insights. But it's certainly a good approach so, it's worth promoting.

Marketing personas are often not aligned with UX personeas, not due to a mistake but due to the fact that the two functions operate in different domains The customer for dog food is not the dog, for example

And the user of dog food isn't the dog either, believe it or not. Dog food is designed for dog owners, not dogs. Everything is designed for humans.

Re: Humans not users

#23

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

Despite the unnecessary beef with the term “user”, the author seems to sugarcoat the only metric that matters at the end of the day - $$$. All of these altruistic reasons designers and app creators claim will help their users is just another way of saying we need more $$$. Let’s be real for a minute and admit that our job as UX designers is to figure out how to squeeze more $$$ out of users.

Re: Humans not users

#24

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

davidivadavid wrote: post #22
gumby wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketing personas are often not aligned with UX personeas, not due to a mistake but due to the fact that the two functions operate in different domains The customer for dog food is not the dog, for example

And the user of dog food isn't the dog either, believe it or not. Dog food is designed for dog owners, not dogs. Everything is designed for humans.

Just like you don’t advertise dog food to dogs.

Re: Humans not users

#25

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

tensor wrote: post #16
davidivadavid wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and a lot of us marketers are scratching our heads when designers talk about "human-centric design" (i.e. making products by thinking about what people want, what marketers have been doing forever) as if it had really profound and new insights. But it's certainly a good approach so, it's worth promoting.

The goal is different though. In marketing the goal is "convince them to buy" or simply "get eyeballs." It's almost hostile to the users at times. The goal of UX is to help them get something done and make them happy. So while the techniques may share ground, the intent is completely different (and new).

Cmon, the goal of UX is not to make anyone “happy”, it’s to get people to be satisfied so that they come back and spend more money. You can justify what you do any way you like, let it feel good, but don’t try to pretend you are not just a cog in the machine.

Re: Humans not users

#26

Post by dependsontheq »

gumby wrote: post #15
davidivadavid wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and a lot of us marketers are scratching our heads when designers talk about "human-centric design" (i.e. making products by thinking about what people want, what marketers have been doing forever) as if it had really profound and new insights. But it's certainly a good approach so, it's worth promoting.

Marketing personas are often not aligned with UX personeas, not due to a mistake but due to the fact that the two functions operate in different domains The customer for dog food is not the dog, for example

Marketing and UX Personas can be the same thing, the problem is that they are often defined for completely different touch points ( TV vs. Software) so the requirements are different and the results are different. Mostly this is confusing for everybody, an additional factor is that most UX teams know how to work with personas and how to develop them. But most ad agencies and marketing departments don’t. This makes their personas often rather weird and unhelpful. It’s often a target group personified ( the whole target group).

Re: Humans not users

#27

Post by mitchbob »

zebracanevra wrote: post #10
cyberferret wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I've always seen 'users' as simply a term for 'people who use my software'. It's a bit like when a local airline here once spent millions in branding research, and started calling their passengers 'customers'. It was really odd to be sitting at the airport and hear the call "XYZ Airline would like to advise all customers on flight 123 that their aircraft is ready for boarding through gate 6"... I always thin…

In Sydney, the public transport trains refer to all of their passengers as "customers" as well. Every single time I am referred to by that name over the PA it weirds me out. Maybe if this was a private system, but for public transport? Customer is just the wrong word.

If you paid money for your trip, you're a customer.

Re: Humans not users

#28

Post by johannesippen »

Hey everyone, this is Jo, the author of this article – AMA. Just kidding, really appreciate the discourse happening here, reading every single one of your comments.

A question for the UX designers in here: Do you think about what your users do when they don’t use your product? What tools/models do you use for that? Very curious for your feedback!

Re: Humans not users

#29

Post by gumby »

davidivadavid wrote: post #22
gumby wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketing personas are often not aligned with UX personeas, not due to a mistake but due to the fact that the two functions operate in different domains The customer for dog food is not the dog, for example

And the user of dog food isn't the dog either, believe it or not. Dog food is designed for dog owners, not dogs. Everything is designed for humans.

Indeed, the primary criterion in dog food design is smell and consistency of output. #2 is cost — how can you tweak ingredients as to legally be allowed to label it “lamb dinner” at lowest cost
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