Practical Examples & Tips for Navigating Moments When Users Ask for Specific Features

By Elina Kapanen

Product designers (and product managers) are asked to deliver a new feature on a regular basis. The request can often come from the users themselves. People tend to have a solution in mind, and if there isn’t a great process set up, that specific solution goes directly on the table of the designer which can at times be frustrating.

Designers use a different language

Product designers’ aim is not to design a feature that is asked by users, right off the bat. This is not what user experience design is. Designers’ goal is to design only meaningful features: features that solve a (clear) problem, that work in the product context, and that take into consideration the point in time of usage and other principles that are important to that product domain.

To do that, designers speak in the language of “goals, needs, and problems” instead. This language allows them to 1) empathize with the people and the problems 2) dig deeper and understand the root cause of the problem 3) understand how important the problem is and 4) inform their design solutions to be the best they can be (and there can be more than one!).

What to do?

It has been like this for years, and I’ve come to realize that it is unrealistic to wish that people used different vocabulary. It requires a mindset change, and it comes with intentional practice. After all, it is a great thing when users request specific things — it’s helpful feedback, and it means that they care. These days, I like to think about it that way:

People subconsciously illustrate their goals, needs and problems by talking about a solution they’ve encountered before. It’s like using a metaphor. These solutions tend to be commonly used, but that does not always mean that they work in the context those people are working in or solve their need in the best way possible. However, they can guide designers to a start of a learning path, and through curiosity and the right open-ended questions, patience, and knowing that there is more than meets the eye, it is possible to come up with those sweet meaningful solutions.

Let’s get practical

To help navigate the daily moments of people asking for specific things, I will be sharing a list of frequently asked features from me, along with:

1. What people often mean when they ask them. These are trends that I’ve noted from my observation and experience of working in product design for more than a decade. They are written more in the “language” of designers.
2. Questions to ask to learn more. Now we are getting to the bottom of things and exploring more.
3. Examples of alternative and possibly better solutions. I added those to help to spark some inspiration to think past the initial solution.

Says: “I want bulk actions.”

Bulk actions allow to quickly execute an action on a set of rows.

Can mean:

1. “I want to perform an action with multiple items based on some kind of criteria.”

2. “I want to re-use a block of content with a certain goal in mind.”

To learn more:

In order to get to the bottom of things and to inform the design solution, it is useful to ask the person questions such as:

• Could you describe what are you trying to accomplish? Why do you need to accomplish it? How often? When (which moment of a process/day/ week/month) does it occur?
• Could you describe what kind of problems you currently face without having this feature? How often do they occur? When do they usually occur?
• Do you have any alternative ways to do this currently? Please describe how you do it.

And of course to keep leading with curiosity, by using open-ended questions.

Alternative solutions to bulk actions:

• Showing suggestions
• Pre-filling content
• Performing the action automatically at the moment when the person would usually do it manually

Bulk actions vs Suggestions

Says: “I want a lot of custom filters.” / “I want to have a tag system.”

Filtering helps to narrow down a large list of items based on specific criteria.

Can mean:

• “I want to filter out content based on specific goals.”
• “I want to categorize content to find it faster and/or find it based on certain goals.”

To learn more:

It is useful to ask the person questions such as:

• Could you describe what are you trying to accomplish? Why do you need to accomplish it? How often? When (what moment of a process/day/ week/month) does it occur?
• Do you have any alternative ways to do this currently? Please describe how you do it.
• Could you describe what kind of decisions this information helps you make? Are there times when you could do without this information?

And of course to keep leading with curiosity, by using open-ended questions.

Alternative solutions to custom filters:

• Displaying only valuable content at the relevant point in time for the person, so they wouldn’t need filtering

Custom filters vs Timed content

• Using already existing data in the system to categorize the content automatically

Says: “I want this X input field on this page.”

Input fields refer specifically to the text input fields, which are used to obtain data from the users.

Can mean:

1. “I want to store the information somewhere, not keep it in my head or in an additional artifact (such as Google Docs, paper, notepad).”

2. “I want to add information to the system so it could use it in a valuable way.”

To learn more:

It is useful to ask the person questions such as:

• Could you describe what problems you currently face without this information? How often do they occur? When (which moment of a process/day/week) do they occur?
• Do you have any alternative ways to get this information currently? Please describe how you do it.
• Do you have any alternative ways to store this information currently? Please describe how you do it.
• Could you describe what kind of decisions this information helps you make? Is it the only piece of information that helps to make that decision or is there something additional? Are there times when you could do without this information?
• Could you describe what this information could be affected by?
• Could you describe if and when this information could change? Why?

And of course to keep leading with curiosity, by using open-ended questions.

Alternative solutions to input fields:

1. No input at all

It’s useful to investigate if there is already existing information in the system that can be used to calculate the data that the person wanted to add to the system in the first place and to display it in a valuable way.

Input field vs Calculated data (no input)

2. Asking for the information only at the relevant point in time

This removes peoples’ need to remember when to add this information to the system and helps to reduce their mental workload. They could use that mental space for more important things.

Input field vs Timed dialog

3. Choosing a UI pattern for quick input for that specific kind of information

• Finding other ways instead of typing if possible, e.g. selects, time pickers, etc
• Understanding which environment the user is in and which of their senses are available at the moment of adding the information. For example, if they’re in a public place — there might be some privacy concerns. If they’re cooking — their hands are occupied, so voice commands could be the best approach, etc.
• Making sure to ask only what is actually necessary

Different UI patterns for quick input

3. Not just collecting information, but thinking about how to use it, as well as when, where, and how to display it

Sometimes it is useful just to collect information and not do much with it actively, but more often than not it is not the case. Usually, people have a certain process with that information — they check it at specific times in order to make decisions. It’s worth to start investigating their decision-making process.

Using the information in a valuable way

Says: “I want X column in the table.” or “I want to see X information on this page.”

A column is a list of values, usually belonging to a particular field, displayed vertically in a table.

Can mean:

“I want to see certain information that helps me to make a decision.”

To learn more:

It is useful to ask the person questions such as:

• Could you describe what problems you currently face without this information? How often do they occur? When (which moment of a process/day/week) do they occur?
• Do you have any alternative ways to get this information currently? Please describe how you do it.
• Do you have any alternative ways to store this information currently? Please describe how you do it.
• Could you describe what kind of decisions this information helps you make? Is it the main information to make those decisions or do you need to consider something more? Are there times when you could do without this information?
• Could you describe what this information could be affected by?
• Could you describe if and when this information could change? Why?

And of course to keep leading with curiosity, by using open-ended questions.

Alternative solutions to displaying new information on a page:

1. Visualizing and structuring content for the quickest comprehension

For each piece of information, it is useful to find the structure and format that requires the least thinking to comprehend it. Visual representations with colors, icons, and count-downs/count-ups can be helpful.

Adding data vs Visualizing data

2. Showing only information that helps to make decisions at a certain point in time

The key here is to understand how the user compares information and how they make choices.

3. Showing suggestions or teaching the system to make decisions for the person

“The decision by a human” vs Suggestions

Shortly about research methods…

For those features, I’d like to also mention a useful method of research and a UX deliverable.

If possible, the best way to gather data for these requests would be to observe people while they’re performing the activity currently and take notes. It would be most informative to observe them in their real environment and at times of the day when they are working with real data. This is called observational inquiry.

For understanding and reviewing a person’s thought process in making decisions, creating a mental model as a UX deliverable could be helpful.

Sometimes, however, due to time constraints, it is needed to stick with just an interview, but as long as the designer is asking explorative questions and inviting the person to display a snippet of their process on the screen, it can reveal an important insight. Some research is better than no research.

Some solutions also require user testing, but that will be another topic for the future.

Summary

When users ask for specific features, do not rush into those very quickly. Instead, get to the bottom of things (keep in mind the language of “problems, needs, and goals”), lead with curiosity to explore more, and use gathered information to inform your meaningful design solution.

It is worth noting that it is not important to remember all these cases and questions mentioned in this article in a real-life context. As long as these examples and tips acted as a reminder to dig deeper, it’s already a takeaway that is good enough.

Thank you for reading. 💌

PS! I’m open to new work opportunities. Feel free to reach out to me on Linkedin. Find my work on Dribbble.