Chapter 4. The User and Context of Use
"All generalizations are false, including this one."
-Mark Twain
The primary questions this addresses are:
- What are the methods and tools that experience designers use to learn about the user they are designing for?
- What kind of user and use information is relevant to the experience design process?
- How can the specific needs of an individual user be generalized to the product design, yet reflect the diverse needs of many other individual users?
We will be shifting from research activities focused on the product's maker, audience, and segmentation that we explored in the preceding chapter, to research activities focused on the product's individual user--from understanding what the company hopes and expects to get out of its investments in design, to understanding the experience, features, and capabilities that will engage the user with the product and provide the most value.
