Thinking Styles for Content

Approach

One commonly used UX tool is the user persona. Data is gathered about user demographics and user behaviors, as well as attitudes and expectations for the product of focus. Characters are then created based on this information with fictional details added to make them more relatable. Personas are often focused on understanding the problems people have with and the expectations they have for a certain product, rather than fully understanding the user’s problem space in order to better address their needs.

“If you know what’s important to the people, instead of what’s important to you and your organization, then you can dream up much more powerful support for them.” Indi Young, 2016

Our approach, instead, was to explore how different people think within a specific problem space. Thinking-styles are deeply researched, demographics-free mindsets shared by groups of people when approaching a problem (Young, 2019). They are an alternative to the traditional user persona. Rather than being a description of a person, thinking-styles are more like different mindsets people can wear within different contexts. Sometimes one person might use one mindset, and then when confronted with a different situation, they may use a different mindset. People are dynamic, so this method allows us to account for that.

interviews

I interviewed people who partake in a specific hobby, who identified themselves as novices (when asked about their expertise, they selected “I know very little about [this hobby]”) and intermediate expertise (“I know about some [parts of hobby], but I have a lot to learn”). We made sure to talk to people across different age groups, ethnicities, education levels and income brackets to ensure we were capturing the experiences of people from a variety of backgrounds.

For the first half of the interview, I asked them to tell me about their hobby and something they had recently found challenging. Participants walked me through their challenges telling me stories of what they had experienced. Some showed me things they had accomplished that they were proud of with their hobbies, some showed me examples of videos and websites they loved that helped them through their challenges, and most talked about their frustrations and how they were trying to overcome obstacles.

For the second half of the interview, I asked specific questions about tools and resources they use to get information about their hobby and how they usually approach finding that information. I also learned about products they prefer and why, what information they had searched for but had been unable to find, and their approach to solving problems.

Findings

From these interviews, we found two main thinking-styles people used to approach their hobby and the challenges they faced with it. This allowed us to identify:

• Unique needs of people using each thinking-style (information needs and presentation of information)

• Challenges and needs that are more universal

  • Questions they have about their hobby

  • What they would like to learn

  • What they thought would be useful to them as they work on their hobby

  • What they need for troubleshooting

• Where in the process people need the most help

Recommendations

This study provided suggestions for new content on the website, to address the needs of this audience through new articles and videos. It also provided suggestions for website design changes that would make accessing needed information easier to people newer to this hobby.

This study also provided recommendations for evaluation of previously existing content on the website. Specifically, a competitive analysis was recommended to learn how the content on similar websites compared to this site, and how other sites were addressing the needs expressed in these interviews. Usability studies were also recommended to determine how to make the information that already existed on the website easier to use and understand by people with less expertise. Finally, competitive usability studies were recommended to compare how specific features on the website compared to specific features on a competitor site, to learn more about which was easier for people to use and understand, and how we could best address the needs that had been identified.

References

• Young, I. (2019, April 25). Advanced Training Series: Thinking-Style Segments. Week1, session 1.

• Young, I. (2016, March 14). Describing Personas [Medium post]. Retrieved from
  https://medium.com/inclusive-software/describing-personas-af992e3fc527