Rethinking Users: The Design Guide to User Ecosystem Thinking

by Michael Youngblood, Benjamin J. Chesluk, Nadeem Haidary (Illustrator)

Knowing your users stimulates your imagination and helps you create more exciting and effective design solutions. But there is a problem: the normal conception of "the user" is incomplete and based on outdated notions. These notions of simple, direct relationships between people and products are no longer valid in today's complex, technologically interconnected world. This fun and practical book with a set of cards will change the way readers think about users.

Rethinking Users introduces a radical new approach that questions some of our most fundamental ideas about the nature of user experience. It points to new opportunities to create products and services that help users in new ways. The book includes a deck of user archetype cards and step-by-step team activities for unlocking new user-centered thinking and design inspiration. For designers, design researchers, strategists, innovators, product managers, and entrepreneurs in almost any field.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction

112 pages, Hardcover

Published March 16, 2021

Reviews

[Klara Jarolimova · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book for anyone who has been in UX for a while and started dabbling in service design. I found it very helpful when planning and conducting integrated ecosystem mapping of my company’s products and services, using the archetypes to best describe use cases for all the different actors and stakeholders who function as necessary parts of that ecosystem. Given that the book was written by cultural archeologists, there is a strong emphasis on human centered qualities around unique systems known as communities. I really liked that aspect of the book, cards and exercises.

My only challenge was that it can get tedious when you try to get cross functional teams to collaborate and do field study, shadowing, and service safari exercises just to introduce a method or tool to help understand the ecosystem of both digital and physical spaces… it can get very complex, so a lot more planning needs to be done for finances, bandwidth etc… but if those are well planned, this can become very handy when one wants to understand not just one user or customer, but all the stakeholders who are dependencies interacting with each other as part of a whole omni channel experience.

[Sarah Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book that I would recommend for designers - particularly those working in product design or UX design fields. When you’re designing a product and imagining your user base, I think that it’s really easy to accidentally limit your brainstorming to direct users. This book does an excellent job of describing a wide variety of potential user archetypes that can help designers to think about the entire user ecosystem of their products - leading to products that are better optimized for a larger breadth of users.

The book also comes with “User Archetype Cards” that make it easy for individuals or teams to complete the exercises defined in the book. I definitely think this is a book that I would like to revisit with some of our team to brainstorm ways that we can improve our product by thinking about users that may not have been considered before.

I would give it a higher review, but I feel that it was targeted more towards teams than individuals and I wish that I could have gained more without having to do full team exercises. Additionally, while I think it is incredibly valuable to think about alternate users, it’s something that personally seems like it will be a difficult concept to fully embrace since we don’t have a lot of resources, funding, or bandwidth. But hopefully this will at least help provide context for brainstorming, and encourage some level of thinking outside the box when it comes to UX design. I also wish the book talked more about how these archetypes can be used in conjunction with traditional user research.

[Tanh Chomphooteep · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book really opens your eyes to the different types of users that actually exist for various products or objects. It’s not just about direct users, but also includes indirect users and those affected in various ways—many of whom we might never have even thought of before. The book is quite an easy read.

The book introduces 15 User Archetypes, explaining what they are like, how they behave, and how they interact with things. Many of these were things I’d never considered. For example, we are "dependent users" on an airplane; whether we sit comfortably or not "depends" on how the people next to us and in front of us use their space. It’s so true!

The book provides concepts that can be further applied and developed. It’s perfect for anyone working in User Experience (UX), Product Design, or other fields involved in experience and product design.

The book is not difficult to read; the authors use simple, non-academic language with a bit of humor sprinkled in. What I like is that the book is designed to be very readable, with plenty of diagrams and illustrations that help make the various concepts clearer. The book isn't thick, either, making it very portable. If you’re really focused, it probably wouldn't take very long to finish.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love the concept and I'll be trying to incorporate it into the products I build.

I ran into some typos in the book and would have liked more software examples to really make it relevant. Also, I'm left feeling "now what?" After thinking about the different archetypes my product serves (or doesn't serve).

[Momo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely useful! I used the book to prepare the workshop and then the cards with the participants. Everyone really enjoyed! I highly suggest to those that need to involve other teams in understanding the users and why their are designing that product or service.

[Amalia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book offer useful hands on exercises and archetypes cards to reflect on users in a more systemic way.

[Chris Wetwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very very useful. Easy to read and understand. Really like it.

[Arturo Ríos · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great overview of different archetypes of users that can apply across multiple fields, in addition to a useful set of cards and exercises to think in terms of ecosystems, not only single personas.