Future Proof UX? Look to the Fringe
By: Joseph Ahlo
Tags: UI, Product Design, UX Design, Design Thinking, User Experience

Photo: unsplash.com @sheasalisbury

Main Points

Extreme users are generally ahead of the market.

Mainstream users will only tell you what works today.

Trends within extreme users may indicate coming changes in the mainstream.

Get in their line.

Plastic wheels rolling on never-ending asphalt streets echoed loudly. Atop custom skateboards a gang of trend rejectors passed by. Their loud under-$20 caps were defiantly positioned, signaling to the world that another way exists. Onlookers scoffed.

Today, that same cap, non-vintage, costs $75 and not because of inflation.

The notion that such style and raison d’être would be synonymous with taste and, in turn, transaction would have been immediately dismissed 20 years ago — negligibly accepted at best. You, too, probably would have rejected the vibe, preferring instead the safety of mainstream info and appeal. Yet, here you are. Waiting in a long line to buy a piece, if you’re lucky, from yet another product drop.

So myopic.

In market and UX research, the target population captures all the attention. This occurs because there is likely some desire to either modify or improve their lived experience. While results from such an exclusive approach to understanding the market may be accurate and reliable, they likely will not produce the intelligence necessary to be one step ahead of the game.

It seems counterintuitive, but the majority demographic is quite the double-edged sword. They are your main set of users, loyal fans, and already consume just the way you want. Indeed, you can learn how to extend the lifecycle of your product, fine tune UX to enhance their engagement, and deeper your knowledge of their lifestyle. However, very little about what’s-to-come or a better way will emerge from this group.

So where to turn? No. You do not need to abandon your target population. However, just as in everyday life the population hosts invisible, unsung heroes that reside at the edges of the bell curve. Though distant from mainstream, their counterculture tastes and preferences may be the insight needed to get ahead.

Know-your-poles.

Called extreme users for how they relate to products so differently, they exhibit behaviors, lifestyles, and preferences that put them into a separate category. Unlike the mainstream center, they are experts at making products, clothing included, work for them and their specific social, utilitarian, and aesthetic needs. Rather than abandoning the product, they stick with, modify, or use it differently than was intended by its designer(s).

As described by Stickdorn, Lawrence, Hormess, and Schneider (2018), a child using kitchen appliances may reveal opportunities to improve their ergonomic design. While not a direct member of the kitchen appliance target market, a child can communicate usage challenges that are masked by adults who have grown to overcome them. This insight offers designers a new opportunity to enjoy a competitive advantage that would not have occurred otherwise.

Extreme users also reveal trends that may indicate how the mainstream will behave differently in the near term. As described by Huxtable-Lee (2018) and Bansal and Duverger (2013), they are generally ahead of the market and their needs today, or at least part, will become the mainstream’s needs tomorrow. Moreover, they are often well versed about current products, brands, and lifestyle experiences and how their choice to diverge is better. In many ways, they are an incubator, iterating again and again until they’ve successfully created a new, alternative experience.

Research for the Social Future.

It is common to avoid the extreme user. Their inclusion is often only to find new ways in which to satisfy the mainstream. If the extreme user, however, offers an opportunity to understand a modicum of the social future, there may be an advantage to consider them instead as your model user.

I am not suggesting that all kitchen appliance designs be swapped for Easy Bake-like alternatives. Instead, follow what about the extreme users’ lifestyle is expanding or gaining in popularity. As extreme users, their lifestyle or experience may be completely unique. The accessible parts of that lifestyle, such as shopping patterns, tastes, or user experience needs, help to frame where to research.

While not as clean-cut as identifying and studying the target population, there are creative ways to follow what about the extreme user is transcending into the mainstream. For example, where do they shop and why? Are those stores and streets where they are located increasing in size and profitability? You can also study the same population a year later to identify if the mainstream is contracting in size compared to the extreme or if elements of what was exclusive to the extreme user is now represented, to any extent, in the mainstream.

Getting on the skateboard.

Including the extreme users in your research will not be straightforward. Deciding which group of extreme users to focus on will pose a challenge that may have some risk if the group is selected. Despite the uncertainty, however, the opportunity to identify and track future patterns of behavior will help to triangulate growing shifts in your target market’s lived-experience.

Credit where it’s due:

Bansal, H, & Duverger, P. (2013). Investigating the measures of relative importance in market research. International Journal of Market Research, 55. doi:10.2501/IJMR-2013–057

Huxtable-Lee, A. (2018). Understanding people — part 2. Retrieved from https://uxdesign.cc/understanding-people-part-2-94b5112624c1

Stickdorn, M., Lawrence, A., Hormess, M., & Schneider, J. (2018). This is service design doing. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media, Inc.