Who to Interview: Extreme Users
Interviewing the average user mostly confirms what you already believe. This lesson makes the case for the edges instead: the people who use something obsessively and the people who refuse to, because both make the design problem visible.
After this lesson you can
- Pick extremes on intensity of use rather than on demographics.
- Explain to a sceptical stakeholder why the edges are worth the recruitment effort.
- Keep a study grounded by holding some mainstream users in the sample.
Sign in to watch
The film runs two or three minutes. Everything else on this page is open.
Module Overview
Extreme users are the people at either end of a range rather than the average in the middle, and the film's argument for them is about contrast. Their needs and behaviours are turned up loud enough to see, which is exactly what makes them useful when what you are after is empathy and inspiration rather than a representative sample.
The worked example is the potato peeler. A team redesigning it studied people with arthritis, who had reduced grip, strength and dexterity. The peeler that came out of it, with its thicker handle, went on to be popular with everybody.
To find your own, list the ranges of behaviour, ability or preference that matter to your challenge, then brainstorm people and groups at each end that you can actually reach. In the airport example the range is frequency of travel, from the weekly business flier to somebody's first flight. Quality beats quantity here: ten to fifteen extreme users is usually plenty, friends and colleagues count, and you are not designing for the extremes, you are borrowing their visibility.
Where this usually goes wrong
- Treating extreme users as a target market rather than as a magnifying glass.
- Reaching for age or income, because those are the variables the CRM happens to hold.
- Recruiting only enthusiasts, and never the people who refuse to use the thing at all.
Check it landed
3 questions, and one of them has no right answer. You get the reasoning either way.
You are redesigning supermarket self-checkout. Which pair are the extreme users?
Why is an extreme user worth more of your time than a typical one?
You can interview eight people. How many of them should be extreme?
Sign in to answer these and see the reasoning behind each one.
Put it to work
2 templates go with this lesson. Each one has its own guide on when and how to use it.
