User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design Are Changing the Way We Live, Work, and Play

by Cliff Kuang

looking for patterns that emerge at each level. What objects are people using? Where do they seem completely confident and engaged versus hesitant or frustrated? Where do groups gather and why? I instruct my teams to make careful note of what is surprising or confusing. Patterns of behavior will emerge naturally.7 Using this approach, you will start to notice behaviors that stand out from the norm. Designers are always delighted to stumble upon these outliers in the course of user observation. If you watch six or seven people in a given situation, often one or two will stand out in the way they behave or respond. The beauty of this approach is that it only takes one outlier to give you a fresh perspective, but you have to follow up and engage the outlier one-on-one (without judgment) to better understand how his or her needs or motivations veer from the norm.