At the Core it's about Needs - uxcamphh

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“At the Core it’s about Needs.”
Sebastian Bossung & Britta Ullrich
UX Camp Hamburg, July 2017
UX Camp Hamburg / Bossung & Ullrich / 29.07.2017
Quelle: Clement127 https://ﬂic.kr/p/jzAyNF

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Britta Ullrich
Team Lead User Insights
“What moves our users?”
Sebastian Bossung
Director Product
“How do you build relevant products?”

Who is XING?
3
Net-
working
E-
Recruiting
Talent-
manager
Active
Sourcing
Jobbörse
XING
Job Ads
Events
Messaging
Startpage
Contacts
Groups
Compa-
nies
Projects
News
Campus
Marketing
Solutions
•  Founded in 2003
•  11 million members
in DACH
•  150 mio € revenue
•  960 employees
•  40 product managers
•  40 UX people

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XING is not
a one trick pony!

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Our user's needs are complex,
but Personas assume simplicity
Personas
Oversimpliﬁcation
•  Static deﬁnition
•  Fixed allocation of users
•  Impression of homogeneity

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Personas did not work for XING anymore
People's needs
change over time
How to deal with people
that ﬁt two personas?
30%
Christian
Sandra

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… changing needs!
WANTED: a model that respects …
… parallel needs!


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Curious?! Enter
Core
Needs

Core Needs vs. Personas, Jobs-to-be-done and Basic Needs
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Basic Needs
Core Needs
Personas
Jobs-to-be-done
Experience
love &
friendship
Stay in
touch
Tell me what
my former
fellow
students are
doing today

Three arenas of Core Needs at XING today
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News
People
Jobs

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A typical example at XING
Keep up
to date
Stay in
touch
Find the
right job

Qualitative
research
Quantitative
research
Implementation
in products
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Core Needs work all the way
One consistent framework across all phases and for all involved

How did we arrive at Core Needs?
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News
People
Jobs
Qualitative research

2 hours in-depth
interviews
with ~50 participants

•  What particular needs
do participants have?
•  How can they be
clustered?
•  What details do we
know about the
needs?
Quantitative research

Survey with XING users
and non users

•  How many of our
users have which
Core Needs?
•  From which arenas
are the needs?
Personalization

Reaction to behavior of
active users

•  Which arena is most
relevant for each
user?
•  How can we
personalize our
products?

What we got: the Core Needs map
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People
Stay in
touch
News
Keep up
to date
Jobs
Find the
right job
Search
to stay

Key structure of a Core Need: If … then … so that
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Search
to stay
If, in spite of being unhappy, I want to maintain my
professional status quo because it’s easy to keep
things how they are,
then I want to review my options,
so that I am more appreciative of my current
situation and ease my conscience that things are
ﬁne as they are.

Each Core Needs is an aggregation of several stories
our users told us
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Search
to stay

Description of Core Needs
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30|
 Outcome and benefit
 What do people want to achieve?
 Outcome of the Core Need and its
benefits for the person.
 Some qualities of a good solution
 How should it feel to use a solution for
this Core Need?
 What qualities do people expect from a
good solution?
 Typical steps
 Typical process steps.
 What do people do in order to satisfy this
Core Need? For what period of time?
ReadingAid
CoreNeed
Description
Core Needs Handbook - confidential
 Core Needs that
often occur together
Safety Development
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Motivation behind the Core Need:
If … (situation)
then ... (motivation)
so that ... (expected outcome).
Core Need
title
 Push/pull
 What pushes a person to seek a change
and what pulls them into a specific
solution?
!  Pull: “It would be great if...”
!  Push: “I can’t go on like this because...”
 Habits/anxieties
 Which habits prevent change and what
anxieties lead people to shy away from
solutions?
!  Habits: “Usually I do...”
!  Anxieties: “I fear that...”
 Characteristics and variations
 Variations that we found in the interviews.
 The various characteristics a Core Need
can have depending on different personal
situations.
 Triggers and contexts
 Triggering events and their contexts.
 When and why does the Core Need occur?
ReadingAid
CoreNeed
Description
Core Needs Handbook - confidential
•  If-then-so-that
•  Triggers & contexts
•  Push / pull
•  Habits / anxieties
•  Characteristics &
variations
•  Core Needs that
often occur together
•  Typical stages
•  Outcome and
benefit
•  Some qualities of a
good solution

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How do you apply
CORE NEEDS?

Core Needs can be applied in several ways
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Qualitative
•  Product
mapping
•  Focused
ideation &
brainstorming

Quantitative

•  Understand
users of
a particular
product
•  Map changing
needs over
time

Personalization
•  Reorder
content based
on Core Need
•  Personalize
onboarding
experience

Qualitative: Map Core Needs against your (future) feature set

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News
People
Jobs
N.1 - Keep up to date
N.2
N.3
…
P.1 – Stay in touch
P.2
P.3
…
J.1 - Find the right job
J.2
J.3
…
✔
✗
✗
✔
✗
Proﬁle visitors
New contacts
Mixed
recommendations
✗
✗
✗
✔

Our product
handles this Core
Need (with proﬁle
visitors and new
contact stories)

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News
People
Jobs
N.2
N.3
…
P.2
P.3
…
J.2
J.3
…
Proﬁle
visitors
✔
✗
✗
✔
✗
New
contacts
Mixed
recos
✗
✗
✗
✔

We would like to
handle this, but we
don't

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News
People
Jobs
N.2
N.3
…
P.2
P.3
…
J.2
J.3
…
✔
✗
✗
✔
✗
✗
✗
✗
✔
Proﬁle
visitors
New
contacts
Mixed
recos

What does this feature
contribute to the
product?

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News
People
Jobs
N.2
N.3
…
P.2
P.3
…
J.2
J.3
…
✔
✗
✗
✔
✗
✗
✗
✗
✔
Proﬁle
visitors
New
contacts
Mixed
recos

Quantitative: understand the Core Needs of user of
different product sections

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Higher Jobs
Core Needs
News
People
Jobs
J.3
P.3
J.2
J.1
P.2
N.1
N.2
N.3
P.1
Platform
Site section
Needs you can use
to connect to
other parts of the
platform

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Personalization: re-order content based on core need arena
Users' past
Personalized product
Importance
of Core Needs
E-mail
People
News
Job
Frequency of using
XING products
Size of network
Followed sources
…
Core
Needs
model

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Personalization: re-order content based on core need arena
Users' past
Personalized product
Importance
of Core Needs
E-mail
People
News
Job
Frequency of using
XING products
Size of network
Followed sources
…
Core
Needs
model

ü  It pays to reﬂect individuality and change in your
needs model.
ü  A consistent Core Needs model improves
communication internally and towards the user.
ü  Implement the actual model in your product.
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What we learned

ü  Start by collecting “If-then-so-that” stories.
Aggregate to Core Needs.
ü  Do a product mapping: How well do your products
deliver on the Core Needs?
ü  Run a survey to ﬁnd out how many users have which
Core Need.
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How you can apply it

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THANK YOU!
Britta Ullrich
xing.com/proﬁle/Britta_Ullrich
Sebastian Bossung
xing.com/proﬁle/Sebastian_Bossung

At the Core it's about Needs - uxcamphh

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