What is a user?

In this video, government user researchers talk about their definition of a user.

Users are the people who use a product or service to get something done. You yourself are a user. You interact with products and services every single day.

They might be called something different, like customers or audiences, but fundamentally, they are users.

Users are real people and the products and services we interact with on a daily basis have a real impact on us. When we design and build products and services, we need to keep the user at the heart of what we’re doing. This is called user-centred design, which we will learn more about in Week 2.

In government, users might be members of the public, but they can also be specialist groups, such as policy makers or legal teams. When we design government services, we always start by learning about the people who will use them. If we do not understand who they are or what they need from our service, we will not build the right thing.

People and businesses use government services to help them get something done. They use services because they need to do something – such as register to vote, check a tax code, or apply for a passport or driving licence – and the service must satisfy this need for the user to get the right outcome.

Building a product or service that will give users the right outcome requires a lot of knowledge about your users. You need to know:

• who your likely users are and what they’re trying to do
• how they currently do it (for example, what services or channels they use)
• the problems or frustrations they experience
• what users need from your service to achieve their goal

Services need to be designed around users and their needs. This is because services designed in this way:

• are more likely to be used
• help more people get the right outcome
• cost less to operate by reducing time and money spent on resolving problems

The process of finding out all of this information is called user research.

We conducted user research as we developed this course – now, we hope that we developed a product that meets your needs as learners wishing to find out more about user research as a discipline. We hope you agree that we did!

Task

Think about yourself as a user. Are there any products or services that you particularly like or dislike using? Why?

Share your thoughts with other learners in the comments section below.