Editor's introduction: In the design process of a product, the design of requirements will be carried out around the needs of users, because the product ultimately serves the user, so user needs are a very important factor, and will also affect the subsequent user experience; the author of this article shares about how Maslow's hierarchy of requirements theory guides the interpretation of human needs, let's take a look at it.
In the analysis of the actual needs of the product, various intricate situations are often involved, most of which come from the user's uncertainties.
Therefore, if you want to design excellent products, you must be inseparable from the speculation and understanding of human nature.
According to Maslow's theory of the hierarchy of requirements, its content can give designers some direction to product needs: no matter what the product sells, it will be developed around the needs of the target user.
As a product designer, you must first identify which level this demand is at, and then dig deep into the user's motivation for this need in order to provide users with sufficient functions to meet the demand.
Below, the author will lead you through this article to explain in detail how Maslow's hierarchy of needs guides the excavation of human needs.
< h1 toutiao-origin="h2" > overview</h1>
Maslow's theory of needs, or "hierarchy of needs," was the brainchild of Abraham Maslow. Harold Maslow) was formally presented in his book The Theory of Human Motivation, published in 1943.
At the same time, he is also the leader of the three major forces of psychology, and the founder and leader of the humanistic psychology school.
In Maslow's view, there are two different types of needs in the human value system:
One is the instinct or impulse that gradually weakens in the ascending direction of the biological lineage, which is called a low-level need or physiological need; the other is the potential need that gradually emerges with biological evolution, which is called a higher need or realization need.
When the needs of the low level are basically met, its incentive effect will gradually decrease, and its dominant position will begin to decline, which will then trigger the demand of the high level.
At this time, the high-level needs will have greater value and upside than the low-level needs.
Maslow's "Pyramid Model" of the Hierarchy of Demand
"Maslow's hierarchy of needs" can be divided into five categories: physiological needs, security needs, social needs, respect needs and self-realization, which are gradually progressed from the lower level to the higher level.
Based on the foundation of the five major levels, Maslow has added two new levels in subsequent theoretical works, namely the demand for knowledge and aesthetic needs, and this article mainly expounds the first five major needs.
Among them, the highest level of the upper level, that is, "self-realization", is to show its potential in the most effective and complete way, so that it can get the ultimate "peak experience". (The term "peak experience" is first mentioned in Maslow's book On Self-Transcendence.)
According to the theoretical basis of the lower and higher levels, Maslow believes that there are five different levels of needs hidden in people, but the urgency of the various needs manifested in different periods is different.
And the most urgent need for people is the main reason and motivation for motivating action.
< h1 toutiao-origin="h2" > two or five levels of demand</h1>
Maslow's five major requirements levels are the most commonly used demand analysis models for product analysis, especially for users to carry out demand mining, and will match different demand levels according to different scenarios when designing.
According to the analysis model, people will only further consider private desires if they meet the most basic food and clothing problems.
Just as there is a lack of water in the desert, people's knee-jerk reaction is to survive, not to go sightseeing. Under the premise of not meeting the lowest physiological needs, any remaining needs "cannot be inserted".
After all, in this scenario, thirst quenching is the most advanced need!
Water is the only need in the desert
< h2 toutiao-origin="h3" >1. Physiological needs</h2>
Refers to the most basic needs for self-survival, including sex, food, water, sleep, and air.
This layer of demand is the most powerful driving force for human action, and it is also the lowest foundation for other needs to coincide with the occurrence of other needs.
Example: When drowning, air is the only need to survive, and the sense of belonging, respect, and self-realization at this time is completely unimportant;
Product case: When people are hungry, they will consider foraging behavior. Hungry Mo and Meituan takeaway are favored by users based on this demand (of course, laziness is also one of the major elements).
It is precisely because it meets the minimum needs that the survival period of such products is the longest.
The left picture of the US group takeaway, the right picture is hungry
<h2 toutiao-origin="h3" >2</h2>
Refers to one's own need for security, order, health, resources, freedom from fear, threats, and suffering.
Examples: In times of war, if the need for survival is met, people will begin to yearn for peace; when they are unemployed, they hope to have employment opportunities; etc.;
Product cases: the hiding of the amount of financial products, the hiding of passwords when logging in, the design of card rounded corners, the design of mobile phone rounded corners, and the anti-collision sponge in the corner of the table are all designed for security.
In addition to the above positive embodiment of safety schemes, it is also possible to reflect the safety of products in other ways.
For example, the strong prompt or secondary prompt of the exit button, and the security verification operation are all used "error proofing" and "interruption mechanism" to ensure the safety of the user when using the product.
The left picture is Alipay's hiding of the amount, and the right picture is the secondary strong hint of the IOS SMS pop-up box
<h2 toutiao-origin="h3" >3. Belonging and Love</h2>
Refers to an individual's desire to establish an emotional connection with others, as well as the need to belong to and enjoy a relative position in a group.
The requirements at this level include two aspects:
One is the need for love, that is, everyone needs a harmonious relationship between partners, hoping to maintain sincere friendship;
The other is the need to belong, after all, people are social animals, there is a sense of belonging to the group, hope to become a member of the group, this demand can be understood to some extent belongs to a higher level of demand.
Examples of this are mainly seen in a little more social:
Examples: Make friends and find true love;
Product case: Belonging and love map to the product is social, from social can be subdivided into acquaintance social and stranger social, which includes family, friendship, love, etc., related products are also emerging.
For example, the content social networking of Douyin, the social networking of strangers of Momo, the social networking of acquaintances on WeChat, and the financial social networking of Alipay, these are all based on belonging and love, that is, the socialization of communication and exchange, which is the eternal theme of human groups.
This is also the main development direction of most products in the current market, after all, because of the eternity of demand, as long as it is done well, it can continue to be done.
The picture on the left is the Alipay message page, and the right picture is the WeChat message page
When it comes to belonging and love, I have to say a few more words:
Now most of the products advocate "user-centric", which sounds very mysterious, but in fact, it is "falling in love with users".
The better the product is done, the more the care is in place, the higher the user's favorability to the product, and the stronger the sense of belonging.
Therefore, many products on the market will be very humane in the polishing of details, such as adding more clothes when it is cold, late at night, and resting after a hard day... Doesn't this sound like a boyfriend caring about his girlfriend?
Relatively speaking, the best way to "care" is "emotional design": the essence of social needs is actually a kind of people's acquisition of emotions, and what social products can do is to help and enhance the emotional connection between people, and strive to resonate with users in some aspects, so that users feel belonging and love.
Just like the H5 year-end summary of major platforms at the end of the year, blank guide pages, 404 pages, and public welfare designs, these are all emotional designs.
<h2 toutiao-origin="h3" >4</h2>
From this level onwards, it is already considered to involve higher-level needs, such as achievement, reputation, status, and honor. In addition, the need for respect includes not only the inner transcendence of the individual, but also the pursuit of external recognition of oneself.
Examples: Constantly working hard in front of parents and friends, wanting to prove that they are excellent and different, hoping to get impressive eyes and appreciation;
Product case: Respect and being respected exist in people-to-people interactions, so the need for respect is strictly hidden in social needs.
Therefore, most social products will add scenes that are respected by individuals or others, such as achievement walls, leaderboards, membership identification, level privileges, special pendants, etc.
Among them, the membership system is a special case, which is a sense of respect and satisfaction that can only be enjoyed after payment, that is, spending money to buy respect.
QQ series members each level logo
<h2 toutiao-origin="h3" >5</h2>
The highest level of demand refers to people's desire to maximize their potential, constantly improve themselves, and challenge everything that matches their abilities, so as to realize their own value.
This is a sublime manifestation when the state of the self is fully satisfied, characterized by a brief "peak experience".
This experience is usually a feeling that can only be deeply experienced after completing a challenging task, and the simple understanding is the moment when the "sense of accomplishment" is obtained, an extremely short but intriguing feeling.
Example: Athletes constantly transcend the limits of their physical fitness, one is to create social value, the other is to surpass themselves, it is to chase dreams and realize their dreams;
Product case: Like Douyin, NetEase Cloud Music are up-and-coming stars, why will it get the favor of huge users, is it just to meet the first four needs? Apparently not.
Compared with some products that meet the basic needs, such as Ele.me, Meituan Takeaway and Didi, they will only use it when the user generates the stimulation of basic needs, and self-realization is more reflected in creativity and imagination being satisfied, which are reflected in the spiritual level.
Like Vibrato is conveying an attitude to life, Ant Forest is a gratuitous dedication to public welfare, and even taking photos and video vlogs is also a way to show self-worth.
The picture on the left is NetEase Cloud Music, and the picture on the right is Douyin
The above self-realization is satisfied in the general direction, and self-realization in some small directions can also be satisfied, such as likes, which is based on social needs, conveying the respect and recognition of friends to themselves, so as to obtain a sense of accomplishment.
Therefore, if a product wants to succeed, it cannot avoid the user's self-pursuit of the spiritual level. It is the soul of a product, just like the value embodiment of the design system needs to be shaped through the brand:
To a smaller extent, brands can convey the attitude of the product directly from the spiritual level, like NetEase Cloud, which combines music and social networking to meet the creative sharing of more free musicians; Douyin combines entertainment and sharing to meet the different hobbies and pursuits of diverse groups.
For example, Apple, Google and other large enterprises, they are not only a mobile phone, do the system of the enterprise, their value is more reflected in the "global users to find a more efficient, more comfortable way of experience" and continuous efforts.
The three design themes of the Apple IOS Design Code: Clarity, Respect, and Depth
However, some products are originally intended to be "self-actualized", although in nature they are in line with the theory of the hierarchy of requirements, but this is always a flash in the pan.
These products may have great value for the future, but for the present, users only get a momentary pleasure, and then they stop.
Dialectically speaking, products created only based on this demand may not survive for a long time, but they will certainly explode the fastest in the short term, and the purpose is to earn short-term value.
For example, in the "AI face change" of the fire in previous years, the user experience is fresh, so that tens of thousands of traffic erupted overnight, but when the user freshness is over, the product traffic will begin to decline sharply or even disappear, and such technology has great security risks in law.
Therefore, fundamentally looking at such a product, under the premise of not ensuring the security needs of users, it can be said that the foundation for realizing self-worth is unstable.
< h1 toutiao-origin="h2" > third, the characteristics of the theory of needs</h1>
<h2 toutiao-origin="h3" >1. Requirements are hierarchical</h2>
Through the progressive relationship of the five major needs, it is not difficult to see that the more the bottom demand, the stronger the original attribute, and the more up the demand, the stronger the social attribute of the hierarchy, and the highest level has begun to rise to the spiritual level.
Therefore, the closer to the bottom demand, the more just needed, such as hungry, Meituan is the bottom demand products.
Imagine, when people are full, they still think about foraging? Obviously not.
Just as the so-called "belly and lust", when the needs of the bottom are met, people will begin to greedily climb upwards, eager to get higher levels of satisfaction.
<h2 toutiao-origin="h3" >2. The more the underlying demand, the longer it survives</h2>
The social environment is turbulent, and people's needs are also "swaying with the wind", but no matter how they are shaken, the bottom needs are always stable.
Therefore, the stickiness of the tools created around the underlying needs may not be high, but it must be the product that survives for the longest.
Like foraging and mating, these are instinctive behaviors, which belong to the lowest needs.
It is no exaggeration to say that these underlying needs have been in place since the birth of the first organic life form on Earth, and the future will remain permanent.
<h2 toutiao-origin="h3" >3. The higher the demand, the more obvious the feeling drive</h2>
Ai face-changing products are the best examples. People use it because they are influenced by market trends, and over time, the life cycle of such products will begin to decline.
After all, it belongs to the highest level of demand, the most basic survival can not be guaranteed, not to mention the more high-level demand is more biased towards the spiritual level, and it will continue to escalate, and gradually become "greedy".
In the nineteenth century, people longed for a convenient way to get around, so the horse-drawn carriage was born.
With the development of society, people began to be dissatisfied with the current speed and hoped for a more efficient way of travel, so cars and airplanes were born.
In modern times, people began to be dissatisfied with the speed of cars and airplanes, so there was a faster speed such as maglev and Shinkansen.
Throughout history, it can be found that travel is a basic need, but people's "faster speed" has risen to the spiritual level, just like after the birth of the car, no one used the horse-drawn carriage to travel.
From horse-drawn carriages to cars to magnetic levitation, people's desire for speed is never-ending
This is because the spiritual level of human beings will continue to pursue and explore, it is driven by feelings, driven by desire, which is also the most fundamental driving force for the continuous development of science, that is, the dissatisfaction with everything, which has created the prosperity of today's era.
< h1 toutiao-origin="h2" > fourth, the disadvantages of demand theory</h1>
According to the theory, the "tendency of need to develop from the lower to the higher" is of course not questionable in the old society, but man is a creature of subjective initiative, and the theory cannot discuss all the characteristics of need in a general way.
For example, the hierarchy of demand is not necessarily satisfied in the form of layers of progressive progress, especially in today's social function continues to develop and improve, resulting in the era of sufficient materials, and the theory has gradually begun to develop adaptability.
In addition, in addition to being closely related to itself, the evolution of demand will also be affected by the outside world.
For example, under the influence of culture, religion, and customs, different cognitions and values will occur, and even there may be a situation of changing from high to low; like the modern girl mentioned above, she is willing to voluntarily give up the bottom of the need for fullness in order to pursue her body, and the purpose is to achieve self-realization at the upper level.
Related examples include Kong Rong Rang Pear, which was influenced by culture, which led Kong Rong to give up the big pear and pursue higher selfless dedication; Mahatma Gandhi used hunger strikes to impress people's hearts and so on.
These are the levels of demand that have changed accordingly with the development of the times.
<h2 toutiao-origin="h3" >1. Requirements are homogeneously derivativable</h2>
Maslow's hierarchy of needs only pays attention to the vertical connections between the layers of needs, while ignoring the fact that under certain preconditions, there will be multiple horizontal connections between needs.
For example, when WeChat 1.0 first came out, it only met the social needs of users, that is, simple text chat, and would not pursue a higher level of convenience, that is, voice telephone or video chat; with the development of society, WeChat in order to meet the diversified needs of users, in the product continues to add a variety of new features, such as voice to text, take a beat, the future may also consider adding like QQ, there is a function that can drag the voice progress bar.
Look at these needs, in fact, they are all constantly deriving within the same level.
It is precisely because of the user's needs at the same level to keep pace with the times, resulting in product update frequency will be slower than the frequency of user demand, which is one of the main reasons why the product must be through a rapid iteration of the way to meet the user in a loop.
<h2 toutiao-origin="h3" >2</h2>
Demand does not run on the lower demand because it wants to achieve the upper demand, and it will not ignore it to achieve the upper demand because the bottom demand is satisfied.
These layers of progressive needs are more like a symbiotic relationship, which is constantly moving forward in waves.
Just like the diversification of WeChat functions, from text chat to voice chat to video chat, in fact, behind each function represents the generation and satisfaction of a derivative demand.
However, in some cases, such stacking, if left unrestrained, can produce a "bloated" phenomenon, which is also one of the drawbacks of demand accumulation.
This phenomenon is particularly evident in B-side products, where the overlap between various functional modules leads to constant duplication and redundancy of data, and the final product becomes increasingly difficult to use.
<h2 toutiao-origin="h3" >3. Requirements should be agile</h2>
If we understand it purely according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the needs of the next layer can only be realized when the lowest level is 100% satisfied.
However, this is not the case: when the physiological needs reach 50%, perhaps 10% of the safety needs will be considered.
Just like children are hungry, the first thing to do must be to forage, but when the meal is half eaten, the children do not feel hungry, they will try to play with toys to meet other needs.
Such needs continue to overlap, and the form of forward development is very similar to the small steps and fast running and continuous iteration model mentioned in "Lean Startup".
It is not like a "waterfall" that goes in sequence, but begins to produce certain signs when the former is not satisfied, in order to move forward faster.
This is like the behavior of consumers in the shopping festival, knowing that buying so many things may not be used, but considering that they will be used in the future, they will buy together, anyway, there are full reduction promotions.
This idea of "will be used later" arose in advance without the existing needs being fully met.
Agility of requirements
<h2 toutiao-origin="h3" >4</h2>
Needs are simply understood, in fact, it is nothing more than to meet some of people's needs, that is, needs come from desires and are spontaneous.
However, this is not the only source of demand, such as social systems, corporate strategies, time factors, resources, rules, and processes are all important factors that can affect demand.
Even many needs are subject to technical barriers and cannot be broken, and can only retreat to the second place to achieve the goal with the current technical means.
<h2 toutiao-origin="h3" >5</h2>
The jump can be said to completely subvert the gradual nature of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
That is, jumping means that "needs can rise directly from physiological needs to social needs, and even directly to the level of self-actualization" (of course, needs can also jump down).
For example, e-commerce products initially only met the needs of users for online shopping. As the product becomes more and more perfect, users begin to be dissatisfied with the present, and begin to derive more different levels of segmentation needs, such as financial segmentation, public welfare segmentation and so on.
Therefore, the satisfaction of needs does not have to be completely in the order of 1-2-3, and perhaps the disorder of 1-3-5-2 can occur under certain conditions, as well as the aforementioned "girl's pursuit of body" and "Mahatma Gandhi's hunger strike", these examples can also reflect the jumping nature of demand.
Therefore, Maslow's needs may have been applicable in that era, but in the context of different periods, the hierarchical concept of requirements will gradually blur.
As inheritors of future generations, we need to look at this theoretical work more rationally, borrow the background knowledge of the current era, and try to optimize it, rather than blindly copying and using it.
After all, human nature is so changeable, the old, unchanging analytical model will eventually withdraw from the stage of history.
If you want it to continue to innovate, only by standing on the shoulders of giants and constantly surpassing the former can it continue to adapt to the times and be used by the times.
<h1 toutiao-origin="h2" >5</h1>
Although there are so many drawbacks and shortcomings, maslow's theoretical value is still huge overall, at least it points out the dynamic process of continuous development of human needs from low to high, which is basically in line with the normal law of the development of human needs.
Moreover, without the theoretical basis of Maslow's hierarchical needs, the world today would not have produced a rich and colorful study of humanistic psychology.
To be successful, a product must be well versed in human nature, and it must also be able to maintain user stickiness continuously and stably, that is, continuously meet the diversified needs of users.
According to the Fogg's Behavior Model, user "behavior" is produced by a combination of "motivation" and "ability":
Fogg’s Behavior Model
When it comes to motivation, it's nothing more than that user behavior is driven by desire. There is nothing that can be done about the user's desire product, but it can be guided accordingly.
Alfred Adler, who also belonged to the humanistic forces, was also a member of the humanist forces. In Insight into Human Nature, Adler reveals that the motivation behind behavior is that human nature is the fundamental appeal of human beings:
These appeals dominate human behavior, and the process by which designers discover and understand them is actually insight into human nature.
The book states:
A person's behavior habits are the key to insight into human nature, is a way for a person to achieve its fundamental appeal, try to find and dig the reasons behind the behavior, is what designers have to do in mining needs.
In addition to guiding the motivation of behavior, designers also need to insert "triggers" in the product to reduce the user's operation difficulty, that is, "simplify the ability through the trigger (leverage principle)".
In this way, it can cooperate with the motivation to promote the generation of user behavior, and ultimately achieve the purpose of meeting the fundamental demands of users.
From this point of view, making a product is not to invent the demand, but to discover the user behavior, and then dig deep into these behaviors as the fundamental appeal of the quilt, that is, the human motivation.
After all, in the face of human motivation, the product only provides a visual trigger with the motivation.
Looking at Maslow's theory dialectically, it arises from a demand structure that deviates from social rules and is divorced from the history and practice of human development.
As Maslow himself later argued:
"Once some needs are satisfied, they cannot be the cause of people's behavior, and are replaced by other needs."
Its theoretical basis is the existentialist doctrine of humanism, that is, the essence of man transcends social history, which is a pure need generated by an abstract "natural man".
Finally, Maslow's hierarchy of needs provides a explorable window for human exploration, allowing designers to understand the progressive relationship and priority order of needs.
However, with the development of the times, users are in a materialistic society, and their needs will gradually become diversified and develop in an increasingly complex direction.
The simple hierarchical progressive relationships like primitive societies exist only in the past, and the various influencing factors of the outside world make demand develop in a more unstable but colorful direction.
What designers have to do is to maintain the original intention, constantly in the process of exploration, the product is better and better, so that the user experience design is more and more high-quality is the greatest contribution to the profession.
That's just one thing to say. If there is any inconsistency, please correct the communication.
Author: Dasheng; Public account: Nagging design footprints
This article was originally published by @Dasheng on everyone is a product manager, and reproduction without permission is prohibited
The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol