User Understanding Framework
A meta-framework to map common research activities, tool, and deliverables against four areas of insight about your users.
Applications
Identify gaps in understanding. Guide the teaching of user research methods. Ideate new user understanding tools. Structure conversations about user needs and behavior.
Related Methods
user research, user-centered design, UX research, UX design, personas, empathy mapping, mental models
Of Interest To
UX designers, UX writers, content writers and specialists, technical writers, UX researchers
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What It Is
The User Understanding Framework (UUF) provides a conceptual model for what a user “is”.
It can serve as a framework to guide design education, research planning, the creation of new research methods, summaries of research insights, or workshops and conversations about a product or organization’s users and customers.
It is perhaps best used for identifying gaps or weaknesses in your user understanding. In which areas are you most confident? Least confident? What can you do to build your confidence in those areas?
There framework has four areas in which you can improve your team’s understanding of your users. They are:
- Identity – who they are
- Mindset – how they think
- Needs – what drives them
- Behavior – what they do
The preceding list is organized in rough order of difficulty—difficulty in learning/uncovering, and difficulty in representation.
How It Works
Many teams stop at the identity level. Use this framework to dig deeper.
The framework is not necessarily intended as a canvas, which is to say you don’t “fill it in”. However, it could be used to sort existing research insights, methods, tools, or deliverables. It could also serve as a jumping off point for sorting initial findings or even assumptions about users.
Identity: Who They Are
Identity encompasses relatively fixed aspects of the user’s person. Identity attributes could include:
- name
- geographic location
- language(s)
- education level
- aspects of business/tech ecosystem (e.g. Adobe user, Figma user, Oracle campus)
- operating system, platforms, devices owned, etc.
- industry
- relational category (e.g. prospective customer, current customer, alumni, influencer)
- tenure (e.g. years as a customer, years in industry, years in role)
- organizational memberships and affiliations (e.g.
- demographic statuses (e.g. retired, married)
Mindset: How They Think
Mindset can include passing emotions, but is better thought of as the user’s ongoing mental orientation to the topic, subject, problem, product, organization, or brand. Mindset is contextual.
Aspects of mindset include:
- influences / whom they listen to and trust
- priorities
- personal preferences
- confidence
- goodwill
- trust
- mood
- context and experience
Needs: What Drives Them
There are a number of serviceable methods from the product, UX, and content design worlds to describe user needs and what drives their behavior. Some common attributes include:
- questions / information seeking needs
- problems and obstacles
- tasks and responsibilities
- goals — personal, interpersonal, professional, life, etc.
- pain points
- jobs to be done
- desires
- ingrained behaviors / problem-solving patterns
- FUD — fear, uncertainty, doubt
Behavior: What They Do
Behavior is what users actually do, or things that actually happen. For user-centered design purposes, we are particularly interested in what actions they take in and around our product/experience/ecosystem.
Common attributes and influences of behavior include:
- actions taken
- timing of actions
- decisions (an internal mental choice preceding an external action)
- paths followed
- calendar events / life events
- brand and product touchpoints
- receipt of information (e.g. reading a letter in the mail)
- tools used
- habits
How To Use It
You can recreate the UUF on your own on a whiteboard or in any design software, or incorporate the framework into a presentation outline or workshop agenda.
The UUF is explored at length and with greater context in my workshops Being User-Centered and User-Centered Content Strategy.
Related Media & Resources
- Mental Models by Indi Young
- Empathy Mapping Worksheet – xplane