Design is conceiving and giving form to artifacts that solve problems. Our design process has, as its first step, problem definition. And I've further divided problem definition into two pieces. One is, crafting a statement that captures the top level objective, or the top level problem that you're trying to solve. And I addressed that in other video using the tool of the five Ys. Today I want to focus on the second part of problem definition which is defining, the user needs. Let me begin with some motivation. You've all heard me talk a lot about ice cream scoops. In fact, I've even gone out of my way to tell you the brand that the ice cream scoop that I like the Zylus ice cream scoop. That ought to be our goal as designers to get the users of our products to be so happy with their performance that they'll actually go to the public and tell people how much they like the product. But I've talked a lot about ice cream scoops. I've talked a lot about physical objects in this. In the video so far. And so today I want to give you a little richer motivation. And I want to use the service example. As the central, illustration. A little while ago, I went with my family to my nephew's wedding in Michigan. So we flew from Philadelphia to Detroit on a Saturday morning. And we emerged from the, the gate. We walked into the terminal. And we, and I felt myself experiencing that dread you get when you face the complicated logistics of making the transition from air travel to local transportation. Our plan was to rent a car. Yeah, it was fairly warm that day. There was a lot of chaos in the terminal. My youngest son was, was pulling on my arm saying, Dad, I really need something to drink. And I was just trying to muddle through and, and find a way to get to the rental car company and get on our way. We got in the, the rental car shuttle. And the driver, whose name was Dee. Stood up, and she carefully went around to the people in the shuttle, to discern how many distinct parties there were there. And therefore how many rentals were actually needed. And she, figured out that there were, Although there were about ten people in the car, in the shuttle. There were five rentals that would be required at the offsite facility. She called ahead and let the people there know. And when we arrived at the facility, I was greeted by a very happy sight. Which was that there were five people standing at the counter ready to serve the five different parties who were renting cars. And so. My, my concerns about waiting in line and about who is first in line melted away as I noted, noted that they had anticipated the demand that they, that they would see. And they had accommodated that demand by arranging for five people to be ready for us. As I started to talk to the rental agent. She, she said to me, "It's a hot day, would you like something to drink?" And she reached from under the counter and handed me a cold bottle of water. Which I was immediately able to pass on to my son. She didn't have to give me a bottle of water. But, she had anticipated my need there and. Provided an element of service that was unexpected. And really gave me quite a bit of, of satisfaction. We then walked out to the parking lot. And she pointed out three or four vehicles there, that were ready to be rented. And she asked me which one I'd prefer. And I looked at them and I thought, well I'm in Detroit. Detroit is the home of the auto industry in the United States. And people here are very proud of their local producers. So I think I'd like to choose this Ford. And I chose a Ford Escape hybrid. Which worked very well for a rental. And as we left the, the rental facility, a very helpful person at the gate directed us to how we would get on the interstate. She said, now, you make exactly two rights and you'll see the entrance to interstate 94 west. This experience was so positive that we spent the first ten minutes of our drive talking about what a great experience we'd had there. And, and why it was that all services weren't that satisfying. So if we think about this. If we think about, that overall service experience. It's easy to imagine. Or it's easy to, conclude. Why it's so important, that we as designers understand those user needs. If we are successful in understanding user needs, and in delivering an artifact that delivers on those user needs. Then, our users are going to be satisfied. At, at a minimum, they're going to repeat their purchase or their selection of our service. And in some cases, they're going to tell their friends, acquaintances, they might even make videos to tell the world about what a positive experience they had. Incidentally, this was the Enterprise Car Rental facility in Detroit, and I highly recommend them. So I wanna take just a minute. And be a little bit more precise about what we mean by user needs. And to motivate, the technique that we're going to use to actually understand and define those user needs. Now remember I talked for a minute about. My choice of the brand. And my choice of that particular model. Which was the Ford Escape Hybrid. And I'd said that. Although I hadn't thought about this in advance. Once I was there, faced with that selection. I thought about the location I was in, and the meaning of brands. To the people that I would be with at this wedding over the weekend. And for me, it was valuable to be able to choose that Ford product. Because that was a product that was made, locally. And so I had some positive brand associations, with that particular product. You might articulate a statement that might go something like this, the car rental service provides a vehicle that's consistent with the customer's preferred brand associations. That's what we mean by a user need. For most products there are least 30 user, distinct user needs that you can identify and with some products you might see as many as 400. For instance I was involved in the development of a blood pressure monitor for use in hospitals that had about 400 distinct user needs. We'll focus in a subsequent video on a method for actually identifying and defining those 30 to 400 distinct user needs.
