Chapter 1 of 7
Design for behaviour, not screens
Learn to see a product the way its users do. See what it does for them, not how it looks. By the end, you can describe any product by what people do with it, and back it up with evidence.
- 6 lessons
- A game, a thought experiment and a skills check
- Free, no sign-up
What you'll learn
- 1 See what a product does, not how it looks
What an app still does when its screens go blank. And the three reasons people start, finish and come back.
About 17 minutes
- 2 Find the problems people don't report
People don't report their own mistakes. Learn how to find them in what people do.
About 16 minutes
- 3 Learn the words for what people do
Simple words for what people do: how they think things work, the mistakes they make, and their workarounds.
About 18 minutes
- 4 Find what you bring that AI can't
What got cheap when AI arrived, what did not, and what is left for you to do.
About 18 minutes
- 5 Test your skills
Check the key words, then use all four lessons on a new case. Each part ends with a score.
About 21 minutes
- 6 Make your behaviour brief
The chapter's project: one page about a product you use, written step by step.
About 31 minutes
By the end of this chapter
What you'll make: a one-page behaviour brief
One page about a product you use every week. Who uses it, what they want to do, where it goes wrong, and how you know.
You make it in lesson 6See what goes in it
Pick a product you use every week, or one you work on. Write one page, in plain sentences. No screenshots needed.
- Who, and in what context. Who uses it, on what device, where, under what time pressure, with whom around.
- Goal. Why they are there. One sentence, in their words, not the product’s.
- Task. What they are doing right now to get there.
- Frustration. Where they slow down, hesitate, make a slip or leave. Name one moment.
- Motivation. What carries them to the milestone despite that.
- Aspiration. What keeps them coming back after it.
- Evidence. For each of 4 to 6: what you saw them do, not what they said. Name the trace (an undo, a repeat, a workaround) and how you would count it.
- Their mental model. What they believe the product is and how it works, and one place it differs from how it actually works.
- The one behaviour to protect. If you changed every screen tomorrow, the one thing the product must keep doing for this person.
- What you do not know yet. Every “I guess” from above, written as a question you could test.
Along the way: The Experience Machine, a thought experiment from Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 1974.