Users Don’t Have Goals

February 3, 2012 by Andrew | 2 comments

My talk for Interaction 12 in Dublin, Ireland.

Another 10-minute, abbreviated talk.

Users Don’t Have Goals

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http://mauvyrusset.com/ Richard Dalton

Nice presentation Andrew, I wish I could have seen it live!

I think your point is that there are a lot of “things” above the *task* level that affect the context of the user? If so, I very much agree.

I started to explore this a few years ago with this diagram:
http://mauvyrusset.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/contextofux.pdf

But now that I look at it again, I find the “about the situation” cloud lacking – it needs more context (ha ha) to account for the problem the user is trying to solve (consciously or subconsciously) and for the emotions the user is having about the situation.
http://www.joelamantia.com Joe Lamantia

Hmm. Seems a core insight is that product-making cultures tend to make products that reflect their own worldviews, rather than that a misplaced focus on goals leads to irrelevant experiences [though this is also true]. I think there’s lots of opportunity for the typically outstanding inkblurt take on this topic – and I’m too lazy to take it on at the moment :)