As we do when we’re building any other relationship, we want to become intimate with the lives of your customers. This will not happen overnight. There is no secret formula. Fortunately, though, there are tried-and-true ways for us to learn about your customers. There are many techniques required to know your customers. This principle really is many principles wrapped into one.

We Are Not Your Customers

One of the most important things that our design teams know is that they are not the customers. Although it might sound obvious, this idea is not always integrated into the way design teams work. Customers do not have the same experiences, do not think the same, do not talk the same, and do not perform things in the same way that design teams do. Therefore, our design teams cannot rely exclusively on their own intuition and experience when creating Web sites. Our design teams rely on research, usability research conducted in-person and remotely, and market research including ethnographic studies, focus groups and surveys, depending on the needs of the project.

Understand the Elements, Balance the Forces

To understand your customers, we consider the competing elements of every design: your customers, their tasks, their technology, and their social context (see figure above). Each of these elements has certain capabilities and limitations that exert forces on your design. To create a successful site, we must understand and balance these forces so that none of them dominate and each is considered in your final design.

Learn more about our services

• Usability Research
• Market Research
• Interaction Design
• Site Design