Is Your User Dangerously Elastic?

We all imagine a user when we build our software. Have you ever committed your imagined user to paper (or bytes)?  If you haven’t, try it now. 

.... <thinking>
.... <writing>

Were you able to do it?  Congratulations. Many times, I can’t even get an initial description to paper.

Now, how does he look?  Did you describe:

• The reasons he is using your product or feature?
• His work or play environment while using your product or feature?
• The skills he has with and brings to your product or feature?

Is your user robust, realistic and consistent?  If so, you obviously know a great deal about your user base, so read no further.  If not, you’ve likely got one of two problems:

1. You don’t (yet) know your users, and are guesstimating, or
2. You do know your users, but having segmented them according to need and skill.  This is called an “elastic” persona, where the user is stretched to meet qualities that are simultaneously impossible. 

Imaging building features for advanced users with an interface for the relative novice; expending a tremendous effort to make your product localizable when the users (foreign and domestic) will only ever use the English; or spending too long building the primary user’s interface when that user’s time is cheap (and she has no influence over the buying decision).  These are 3 elastic user situations I’ve encountered just this year.  They were all a waste of effort, time and money.

If you’re guesstimating your users, I recommend you read this posting on improving your user image or persona.  If you have elastic personas, you may simply need to carefully divide the users according to their needs and skills.

Let me know if you have any questions.