Working with user needs

Use research and evidence to understand what people need from content.

How to design content based on user needs.

When creating new or improving existing content, user research or evidence gathering should be done to find out:

  • who the likely users are
  • what they're trying to do
  • what users need to achieve their goal, their goal could be to complete a transaction or to understand how something works
  • how they currently do it
  • any problems or frustrations they experience while doing it
  • what language they use to express their needs

Documenting users and their needs helps make sure you understand the information need or problem you're trying to solve before you begin designing and prototyping your solution.

Finding out what users need

You can find out what users need by:

  • reviewing existing evidence (for example, analytics, search logs, call centre data, and previous research reports)
  • interviewing and observing actual or likely users
  • conducting surveys
  • talking to people inside and outside our organisation who work with actual or likely users (for example, caseworkers, call centre agents and charity workers)

Once you have a good understanding of your users’ needs, you should write them down as user need statements.

Helpful resources

See GOV.UK's Service Manual for information on how to:

If you want to evaluate existing content or check if an approach makes sense, you can use:

Writing user needs

For every piece of content, you should define a few different user needs to reflect the different types of users visiting your page. You may need to consider several needs when planning your content.

User needs should follow this format:

As a… I want to… So that…

You complete the sentences based on the tasks identified by data, analytics, or your research.

Example:

As a mother of 2 children, I want to find out if I am eligible for social housing, So that I know if I should apply.

A good user need:

  • is written from a personal perspective using words that users would use themselves
  • is focused on what’s most important for your users so you do not create an unmanageable list of user needs

Consider the end-to-end user journey

A user's journey is the steps and touchpoints that the user needs to go through from the start to the end of their task. It also includes any offline interactions such as by mobile or face-to-face.

To understand a user's journey, you should understand their:

  • goals
  • motivations
  • current pain points
  • outcomes they want to achieve

Every interaction they have should take them closer towards their goal.

Consider:

  • the overall task
  • should we provide the information, or point to a subject matter expert site, like the NHS
  • where the best place to host content is

For example:

someone’s overall task may be to move house rather than tell us about a change of address for Council Tax

for health information that is not specific to Camden, we should point to the NHS

if we’re asked to create campaign content, consider if using social media, or an existing events platform is a better place to publish rather than creating a new online destination

Map the users' journey

Journey mapping helps you understand the user's journey.

It covers all the offline and online steps the user has to take to complete a task. That can be something physical they get at the end, or it can just be a piece of information.

For more information about making user journey maps, see:

Validating user needs

Good user needs should:

  • sound like something a real user might say
  • be based on evidence from user research, not assumptions
  • focus on the user’s problem rather than possible solutions (for example, needing a reminder rather than needing an email or letter)

Sharing your findings

Sharing your work is the easiest and quickest way to get feedback. You can share your findings in a Google doc or hold a crit.

Present what you’ve learned in a way that’s easy for others to understand and share. For example:

  • experience maps that show how users interact with existing or future services and the needs they have at each stage (register, apply, interview and so on)
  • user profiles or personas that describe groups of users with similar behaviour and needs (for example, new parents or small businesses)

The more you share, the more others will understand about your users and what they need from your content.

You might find the following blog posts useful:

Linking user needs to stories

As you design your content, you’ll use your high-level needs to write user stories or job stories. These describe the specific features and content you need to create for your service to meet your users’ needs.

A user story follows this format:

As a [person in a particular role],

I want to [perform an action or find something out],

So that [I can achieve my goal of…].

A job story should follow this format:

'When [there’s a particular situation],

I want to [perform an action or find something out],

So I can [achieve my goal of…].'

User stories and job stories include additional information like acceptance criteria, level of complexity and dependencies. They can be used to organise work into manageable chunks that move users towards a goal.

The most important part of a user story is the goal. This helps you:

  • make sure you’re solving the right problem
  • decide when the story is done and a user need is met

If you’re struggling to write the goal then you should reconsider why you think you need that feature.

Writing acceptance criteria

You should also include a few acceptance criteria for each story.

Acceptance criteria are sentences or series of bullet points that define when the user story is met. They’re often written as a list that begins with ‘it’s done when…’.

Example:

  • it's done when the user knows how to apply for a Blue Badge online
  • it's done when the user knows how to download a form to apply by post
  • it's done when the user knows where to send the form

You can then use your user stories and acceptance criteria to design a whole user journey, a new page or form, or restructure existing content.

Acceptance criteria also make communication with different stakeholders easier as they focus teams on the 'what' of the work, rather than the 'how'.