Uniquely Similar

If you are working with human beings on a daily basis then you must know this fact.

We are 99.9% similar. We all have two ears, two eyes, one nose, similar dental structure, five litres of blood, 320 muscle groups, 207/8 bones depending on gender, 11 systems and more. Physiologically, behaviourally and emotionally we are super similar than we think.

We are 0.1% different. DNA tests prove that the sequence of genetic material is unique for every single human being. 0.1 sounds like an insignificant number but in a 3 billion base pairs of human genomes, 3 million base pairs are not a small number. This is what makes us so unique that it takes 1:400 trillion to find another you. This is what makes you a walking talking limited special edition on planet earth.

This fact blew my mind as a researcher. This gave me confidence to conduct human cognition studies first before going to the target customer studies. I created my AASA framework, and it has helped my research career all along. It is all about anchoring, auditing, scanning and asking. Asking/primary studies is the last thing. If you work closely with me, I put a lot of emphasis on audits and cognitive walkthrough just for this reason. When you understand your user role deeply, you typically find out 85% of the issues without asking a single customer. 85 is a big number.

If you are in the field of research, by now you know how hard it is to conduct a simple 10-member primary study. It drains you in research operations and it gets super expensive which typically orgs will think twice before funding. It takes a lot of influence and groundwork to get the ball rolling. I empathise with the budgetary aspects and hence I don't bother my senior management with funds for research.

As a researcher I study human behaviours in multiple dimensions before I even go to my target customers. My questions to the target customers are sharp and pointed. I don't ask ice-cream questions and waste my target user's time. It is almost like meeting god himself/herself. I treat that time so preciously that my target users can feel it and they pour their heart out beyond the interview/validation studies. I share "this" data analysis with execs and now the funding comes as they see that you have put in the necessary work. All of it based on just one fact.

I extend the same mindset to my partners/stakeholders/colleagues as well as all of them are human beings. I treat them as limited special edition while I know we are all super similar physiologically, behaviourally and emotionally. This makes working with others (anyone for that matter) more human. You don't need special classes to treat human beings in a humane way. Just knowing there is no one like you or the other, makes it super special.

Tomorow let's deep dive into emotion and reason.

#human20 #design #productmanagement #userresearch #day1

🥂to similarities and differences!