Use Case in Design Thinking

A use case explains how a user interacts with the solution for a perceived benefit. It is important to understand that the benefit may not be tangible and real – it could be emotional or psychological. Most teams fall into the trap of just focusing on the capabilities or features of the solution and do not put an effort into understanding how that particular capability benefits the user. To be able to do that, you must have empathy with the user. By now you should have spent enough time with the user and have understood his/her thoughts and feelings well enough at a deeper level to be able to understand the kind of benefit the user is likely to derive and perceive.

To be able to understand how your solution capabilities benefit the user, think about whether your solution is able to help the user hit the target Better for Quality advantage, Faster for Efficiency advantage, Cheaper for Cost advantage or Easier for Experience advantage.

Hitting the target could be helping the user Finish a job, Accomplish a goal and Realize a vision.

Review the value proposition section in Stage 3 (Step 2) to gain a deeper understanding of these concepts.

1. User Case Template

Use this template to document use cases that are enabled by your solution for your user.

1. User Case Example

Here is an example of how the use case template could be filled out.

3 Guidance

Session Lead
Draw the table on the whiteboard, and collaboratively in your team. Capture the key capabilities in the form of statements reflecting benefit to the user. Think deeply on the actions the user will take while using your solution and the beneficial result that he/she will derive.

For each of the use cases, mark whether the result is a better, faster, cheaper or easier way of hitting the target – completing a job, achieving a goal or realizing a vision.

3.1 Document Assumptions

After the session, the session lead should ask the team to write down all the assumptions made and record those assumptions in assumptions template in Stage 4.

3.2 Review Prior Steps

Review the prior steps and adjust as needed with the consensus of the team.