Process

Borrowing Adaptive Path’s double-diamond process, I use Personas, User Stories, Sketches, Wireframing and Prototyping to understand the users’ needs and explore solutions for them. The goal is to maximize understanding of the problem space while deferring detail as long as possible to ensure a lean product development process.

Persona: Meet Alex

Alex is an aspiring entrepreneur with big dreams but a busy schedule.

“I sometimes get lost reading and browsing stuff from people I respect. But quality is important — finding credible content shouldn’t get in the way of my learning.

Personas are a great tool for developing empathy for the user and in ensuring that a product is designed to solve actual user needs. Although Quora has many kinds of personas (i.e. sage contributors, inquisitive scholars, etc), I focus on Alex, the time-starved entrepreneur, because my usability test participants all shared similar demographics, behaviors, and needs. Furthermore, Alex’s persona has a higher probability of resonating with the majority of users, according to the oft-quoted 1-9-90 rule (1% will answer, 9% will edit, and 90% lurk) in content-based networks.

Alex’s three core needs are:

1. Content Reliability: He wants to learn from the best, so Alex wants to easily see the best content on Quora. 2. Quick Access to Content: Alex is already heads-down working on his startup so when he needs to find something on Quora, he needs it pronto. 3. Content Discovery: With such a hectic schedule, the serendipitous advice and occasionally fun insight on Quora is an escape for Alex.

User Stories: Alex’s Needs

After understanding Alex’s 3 core needs, User Stories help me break them down from abstract high-level Epics into smaller designable pieces, which essentially make up the Use Cases. The Needs in the picture above are taken from comments users made during usability testing and organized under their respective Epics.

Next, I use a framework to break the needs down by the user’s roles, goals / desires, and desired benefits.

Framework: “AS A <Role>, I WANT<Goal/Desire> SO THAT <Benefit>”