Develop a deep understanding of users and the problem you’re trying to solve for them.
Look at the full context to understand what the user is trying to achieve, not only the part where they interact with government.
Why it's important
Understanding as much of the context as possible gives you the best chance of meeting users’ needs in a simple and cost effective way.
Focus on the user and the problem they're trying to solve, not a particular solution. You can learn unexpected things about their needs if you do this.
The real problem might not be the one you first thought needed solving. Test your assumptions early so you can reduce the risk of building the wrong thing.
What it means
Service teams should learn as much as possible about the problem users need them to solve by:
- doing user research to understand what users need and, where relevant, you can do secondary research and analysis
- building quick, throwaway prototypes to test their hypotheses
- using web analytics and other data to enhance your understanding of the problem, for example data from call centres
For GOV.WALES services, this means: