How do you identify and prioritize user needs when starting a new design project?

In my final year, I worked on a project to design a mobile app for our college's campus services. To identify user needs, I conducted informal interviews with fellow students to understand their pain points. Many expressed difficulties in finding study spaces and accessing event information. I took these insights and created a survey to quantify the feedback. From the data, I prioritized features like a real-time study space map and an event calendar. By focusing on what users deemed most important, our team was able to present a prototype that received positive feedback during class presentations.

While volunteering for a local non-profit, I noticed their website was outdated and hard to navigate. I organized a small focus group with volunteers and community members to gather their thoughts on the current site. Many users mentioned they struggled to find information about events and how to get involved. Based on this, I prioritized improving the site’s navigation and adding a calendar feature. I created a few wireframes and shared them with the group for feedback, which helped us refine the design further. The revamped website led to increased engagement and attendance at events, highlighting the importance of user needs in design.

In my first role as a junior designer, I was part of a team tasked with enhancing a product feature that allowed users to customize their profiles. We began by analyzing customer feedback and usage data to identify which aspects users found confusing. I facilitated a couple of user testing sessions, where we observed users interacting with the feature. Based on their struggles, we prioritized simplifications that catered to the most common pain points. Post-launch, we tracked user engagement metrics and found a significant increase in usage, demonstrating the effectiveness of prioritizing user needs.