User Needs for Publishers: From Theory to Practice
User needs are easier to work with if you combine them with topics and customer segments that are important to you.
Thinking outside-in and putting the users front and center by focusing on their needs as an integrated part of product management and/or the editorial process requires more than a mere decision to do it.
First, you have to make sure that it is somehow operational – this means that you should choose a limited number of needs to focus on. Focus beats freedom, as the saying goes.
WSJ vs. the BBC
Several publishers have begun working with a set of defined user needs (some do it different than others) and in a previous post I wrote about how I work with six more or less generic user needs, which I then analyze: