This Mess Called Overthinking

I’ve always been kind of lucky. And my luck didn’t run out when I got into the cowrywise design fund for women program.

It sure didn’t end with getting the perfect group for my first design project. I got three amazing classmates in my group who were ready to contribute in whatever way they could.

I mean what else could a girl want?

But here’s the thing; we were all overthinkers.

Now sometimes, it can be a good thing. Most times though, I can’t really say.

Our first project was to identify a relative problem in our area and come up with a plan to solve this problem.

After days of brainstorming, we found a problem and agreed on a solution which was a Digital Health App.

Hours into the meeting, we had come up with features for the app, who was going to have access, how it was going to work and many other limitations.

There was a problem we wanted to solve; reducing death rates caused by lack of accessible medical history during emergencies.

It was perfect. The story, the slides, the app.

But we didn’t kill it during the presentation. In fact, we were the scapegoats of the class.

Here’s why;

What we did wrong

We failed to thoroughly research the problem presented. So focused on what the app could do, we came in with a lot of assumptions and hypothetical situations. To be honest we didn’t speak to a single person or think about running it by an actual medical practitioner.

So that was how we failed the first test of user experience design; thoroughly understanding the problem.

Our persona was a proto-persona (a user who isn’t backed by research). We should have spoken to a number of people so we could have gotten actual personas and their input. This would have qualified as user research.

What we learnt

We learnt that the core of user experience design is creating a meaningful and relevant experience for your users. So it’s all about what your user wants and not what you think they want.

Of course, you cannot truly understand these needs if you don’t ask them directly or any other alternative methods of user research.

Our overthinking caused us to jump 15 steps ahead and completely lose track of the assignment.

We learnt that you design things for people when you know what they truly want. You can’t get that when you don’t make your research. Else you’ll just end up with a project no one wants to use.

Personally, I learnt the hard way, that I am not my user. So, whatever assumptions or ideas I have about their needs is irrelevant. The only thing that matters, is what they truly want.