Teach you how to quickly build a user model

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There is no unified definition of user model at present. In a narrow sense, user model is the outline of the real characteristics of the website's target group and a virtual representative of real users. The purpose of establishing user model is to minimize subjective assumptions, get closer to users, understand what they really need, and know how to better serve different types of users.

Alan Cooper, the father of interactive design, proposed two methods for building user models:

Traditional user model: Based on research results such as interviews and observations of users, it is rigorous and reliable but time-consuming.

Temporary user model: It is built based on the understanding of users by industry experts or market research data. It is fast but easily biased.

Traditional user research methods select comprehensive factors, covering basic user attributes, behavioral characteristics, etc., and require user interviews and questionnaires. Although the research results are relatively accurate, they often take a long time. For companies that pursue small steps and fast progress, time is too precious. By the time a report is produced after several months, the opportunity may have been missed.

Therefore, we can consider building a temporary user model. Based on our understanding of users, we can select several factors that most affect users and products for analysis, quickly build a user model, and assist in product decision-making.

Methods for quickly building user models:

This article uses "Everyone is a Product Manager" as an example to explain step by step how to quickly establish a user model.

1. Select appropriate factors to divide user groups

Factor: User attributes used to divide user groups when building a user model, such as age, gender, income, occupation, etc.

Choosing the right factors

The purpose of this user research is to understand the reading preferences of non-UGC users of "Everyone is a Product Manager". Selection factors:

Segmenting user groups

After you have selected the factors, you need to make a simple division of the user groups, which will serve as the basis for further research.

In "Everyone is a Product Manager", users are divided into four categories based on their "years of product experience":

After the segmentation, check whether the results meet your expectations. If not, you need to adjust the factors until the segmentation results are the typical users you expected. If you don't know who the typical users are, you can ask people around you to roughly determine the characteristics of typical users.

Among these four groups of people, each one is a representative of a user group. By understanding the user group yourself or finding some typical users around you and then matching them to the four groups, you can clearly see what this user group is like.

Next, you need to analyze each of the divided user groups one by one, add some relevant information, behavioral characteristics, etc. For example, add the user's position, usage scenario, purpose, etc. to enrich the user portrait, and then build a user model.

2. Create a temporary user model

*** user group: people who want to work in product-related fields, interns or recent graduates, and people who transfer from other positions to product-related positions. This group of people visit the community very frequently and go wherever there is good content. They are mainly readers and do not create content themselves. They do not have strong loyalty to the community.

The second user group: people who have been engaged in product-related work for 1-3 years, have a certain understanding of products, interactions, operations, etc., are in the growth stage, and need to learn a lot of knowledge to lay a solid foundation and broaden their horizons. Some people have formed a certain loyalty to some communities, and their main energy will be concentrated on one or several communities, and they will not wander around aimlessly.

The third user group: some have already started to lead a small team to do projects, which is one level higher than the ordinary product manager, except for large companies such as BAT. At this time, the goal is mainly to move towards a higher level of power center. In the PM community, they begin to try to share experiences, guide others, answer questions for everyone, and actively create content, rather than focusing on reading.

The fourth user group: those who have worked in product-related work for more than 5 years, most of whom are already product directors or CEOs of startups, etc. They visit the community mainly for self-marketing, company brand marketing, recruiting, and improving their influence in the circle, etc. For example, big Vs in various fields are basically not reading users.

Through the above analysis, we can find that the third and fourth types of users have basically formed a certain degree of loyalty to the community, and actively create content and attract fan users, which is often the opinion that "everyone is a product manager".

After dividing these user groups, we need to see which ones may be the future incremental market and the groups that need to be focused on. There are already many columnists for "Everyone is a Product Manager", and the content of the articles is enough to support it. Then we need to focus on the first and second groups who want to work in product and have just started working in product. These two groups of people are relatively large in number, and their loyalty to the PM community is not high enough, so they are easier to win over.

The purpose of this user research is mainly to understand the reading preferences of non-UGC users of "Everyone is a Product Manager". Next, we need to conduct user interviews with these two groups of people to verify the feasibility of the user model.

3. User interview verification

Since the temporary user model is more based on one's own understanding of the user, it is quick but easy to form deviations. Therefore, we need to conduct a simple verification through user interviews.

User interview: It is a qualitative research method used to identify problems and explore the user needs behind the problems. It usually has two purposes: discovering the real problem and finding the right solution.

Steps of user interview:

Simply put, user interviews are about: starting from the shallower to the deeper, from the outside to the inside.

User interview methods:

1) Breaking the ice: Ask simple questions like chatting, and create an interview atmosphere.

2) Ask open-ended questions. For example, "What do you think is attractive about this feature?" instead of asking users in a closed-ended way, "Do you like this feature?"

3) Pay attention to the user’s real feelings in the past and present, as well as the user’s non-verbal information, including body language, voice tone, etc.

4) Ask only one question at a time. After the user answers, try to ask more questions coherently and repeatedly confirm whether you understand the user's answer.

Key points for user interviews:

1) Don’t ask questions that are too open-ended or too vague. For example, “What do you think of the Renrenshizhepinmeng website?” A vague question may result in a vague answer from the user, such as “It’s great.”

2) Avoid asking biased questions, such as: Do you like this feature? This will more or less imply or influence the user's answer.

3) Listen and don’t interrupt the user at will. When the interviewee strays away from the question, you need to interrupt tactfully and bring the topic back. A common way to interrupt is to repeat the interviewee’s answer once to show your agreement, and then ask the question again.

4) Focus on the problems users encounter, not their solutions. Often, when users give answers, they will directly tell you how this function should be used. We need to focus on the problems users encounter when using this function and the causes of these problems, rather than just doing what the user says.

For example.

When understanding the reading preferences of the first two types of users of "Everyone is a Product Manager", the question design (for reference only) is:

1) Opening remarks: Understand the user’s basic information, such as age, position, etc.

2) In what scenarios do you usually read articles on “Everyone is a Product Manager”? (Understanding user usage scenarios)

3) What content do you focus on? (Understand user reading preferences)

4) Why do you visit “Everyone is a Product Manager”? (Explore the user’s purpose)

5) Which features do you think are not well done? (Understand the direction in which the product can be improved)

6) What other features do you think need to be added? (Understand users' future expectations for the product)

7) Why do we need to add these features? (Explore the motivation behind the demand)

...

In order to protect the personal privacy of the interviewees, their specific answers will not be posted here.

4. Modify user models to assist product decision making

Through specific interviews with 7 users, it was basically verified that the deviation of the above user model is not very large.

The analysis conclusions of this user research are as follows.

1) New product developers with no experience mainly prefer:

Hot spot analysis, competitive product analysis, demand analysis, prototype design, and product design.

Understanding of predecessors’ work experience and experience sharing.

I know some celebrities in this industry and hope to integrate into the circle.

I want to know how to learn product knowledge.

How to apply for a product position or transfer smoothly.

2) People who have been engaged in product-related work for 1-3 years mainly read:

User research, data analysis, product planning, product operation, psychology, etc.

Knowledge related to your current job.

Insight into user psychology:

In these two stages, users tend to show more curiosity, herd mentality, laziness and the pursuit of a sense of belonging.

To understand a new field, users need to urgently learn knowledge in this area and have a strong desire for knowledge; they pay attention to the big names in the field, read their articles and understand what the big names are paying attention to, and the herd mentality is obvious; they want to integrate into the circle as soon as possible, proving that users are looking for a sense of belonging; they pay attention to content that interests them, in fact, users want to be able to find the content they need efficiently.

When users become working product people, they need to pay attention to some more in-depth knowledge, expand their knowledge scope and depth, have a stronger sense of purpose, have higher requirements for information screening, have established a certain personal circle, and want to make friends with higher-level product people.

The needs expressed are:

Hope to quickly obtain valuable content;

You can follow your favorite celebrity columns;

There is a good community atmosphere;

Make more friends with like-minded people to communicate and learn together.

Features that meet your needs:

Test reading tastes, personalization, classification, search, popular article rankings, attention function, question and answer section, etc.

5. Conclusion

Let’s reiterate the steps to quickly build a user model:

I hope it helps you, and welcome your comments and suggestions~