PAINStorming |
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What is it
PAIN stands for Persona, Activities, Insights, and Needs – the four main research topics explored in this structured method for gathering insights about users or user identities.
Why use it
- Improve the team’s understanding of the user’s behaviors, pain points, assumptions, and needs.
- Focus the team on addressing actual user preferences.
- Explore assumptions and identify the unknown gaps about users.
When to use it
When you need to better understand user identities, activities, and difficulties.
Level
Beginner
Outcome
Understand
Group Size
2+ people
Suggested Time
30+ minutes
PAINstorming Worksheet
How to do it
STEP 1
Identify an initial set of ideal users in the P block, perhaps using the Personas tool as a source of inputs.
STEP 2
Observe and/or interview the users to answer the questions identified in the A, I, and N blocks in the PAINstorming table.
STEP 3
Use this data to ensure that any proposed products, services, or interventions are aligned with actual user preferences.
Benefits
- Helps generate thoughtful insights into the needs, priorities, and pain points for various users.
- Make several of these to represent a wide swath of stakeholders.
Challenges
- Generally requires some research – interviews, surveys, observations, etc – to develop accurate answers.
- Risk developing a superficial representation based on assumptions rather than data if they try to generate a Persona without research.