Extreme Characters (also known as brink users and extreme users) is a methodology used within user-centered design to represent edge case users of a product, brand, or user interface. The methodology also falls under the broader framework of market segmentation within marketing, as it informs design solutions for both average and extreme users. The concept has been widely adopted in user-centered design and human-centered computing, leading to its application across both online and offline contexts, as well as its integration into marketing communications.
The Extreme Characters methodology is centred on designing for the brink users of a product. The process begins with data collection through focus groups and interviews with specific users, from which a clear goal or user need is identified. By directing design toward needs that are only reflected by a minority of the focus group, the use case of extreme users emerges. Designing for this minority ultimately produces solutions that address both brink users and the average users.
The concept of Extreme Characters has nonetheless faced scrutiny, with critics questioning its role within user-centered design and marketing. The primary criticism is that the methodology risks directing designers and marketers away from the target market of a specific product or service, and that it does not ultimately represent the real end users of that specific product or service.
Through the use of extreme characters, designers can map the varying contexts in which users interact with a product and tailor their designs to meet a broader range of needs. By observing the workarounds that extreme users develop, designers can create solutions that serve not only the general population but also these brink users.
Finally, the influence of Extreme Characters can be seen in the development of several landmark technologies. This is reflected in J. Djajadiningrat's work Interaction Relabelling and Extreme Characters which references both the invention of the first telephone by Alexander Graham Bell and the creation of the first closed source email protocol in 1972 by Vint Cerf. The methodology has also played a significant role in shaping modern technology and its overall design. This can be seen with the creation of the Nintendo Wii and the redesign of the Ford Focus.
History
The earliest study that coined the name 'extreme characters/extreme users' for this approach was J. Djajadiningrat's Interaction Relabelling and Extreme Characters. However, the concept of using extreme characters in the user experience of products or services can be dated back to the 19th century.
This can be seen through Vint Cerf's exploration into programming a closed source email protocol in the year 1972. Through his programming, he showed that with electronic letters within a closed network, he was able to talk to his deaf wife while they were both at work.
Another known landmark use of this design methodology before the cultivation of its academic recognition within the aforementioned J. Djajadiningrat's study, was Alexander Graham Bell's work with the deaf, which resulted in his patent for the first telephone.Alexander Graham Bell ((booklet)). Halifax, Nova Scotia: Maritime Telegraph & Telephone Limited. 1979. p. 8. Through designing for a patient with hearing difficulties, a user that is not inherently the 'generic user', Bell's work culminated in one of the biggest telecommunication leaps in the modern age.
J. Djajadiningrat's study The first academic recognition of extreme users can be seen within Interaction Relabelling and Extreme Characters: Methods for Exploring Aesthetic Interactions. Through its citing of specific studies in the use-cases of personas, it shows how many studies had been citing the use of extreme characters within their product design without realising their academic potential. J. Djajadiningrat provides the example of Actors, Hairdos and Videotapes - Informance Design, which was already using extreme characters before the technique was coined. Extreme characters were used in this design in order to steer the product design away from the characters within a specific target group. He points out their accidental use of three extreme personas: a drug dealer, the Pope, and a woman with two husbands. Following this, Djajadiningrat judged the development of each character in order to analyse the creation of specific products that helped their contexts. For the Pope, it was a product that gave status; For the drug dealer, it was a product that highlighted secrecy; and finally, for the polyandrous wife, it created a product that designed a management system.
J. Djajadiningrat's study was the first academic recognition of extreme users, and demonstrated the academic advantage of how the methodology can expose emotions and traits that are not obvious for the standard user's scenario. J. Djajadiningrat argues that utilising this technique allows designers to make more humane and human-centric products and services.
Benefits
In accordance with Martin Tomitsch, a lead user experience designer at the University of Sydney, the concept of "extreme characters" stems from the design process as it instills a consideration for the users outside of the typical and generic user base of a product or service. It can, thereby, provide a compelling design solution and focus on constructing abstract data, which is received through user testing, into a complete design solution for the non-stereotypical type of user of a product or service.
It is often used in the early stages of the design, according to Tomitsch, as it allows for the User Experience Designer to generate new problem aspects of the design, and, in hand, promote new elements and aspects of the design concept. Following this, representation of the 'extreme users', through other various User Experience methodologies, such as bodystorming or role playing into these types of characters, can thereby promote a bigger picture of this character profile that the design team can manufacture and ideate a product or service towards.
According to research by Sujithra Raviselvam's team, role-playing not only provides researchers with inspiration for product design, but also enables product development teams to better understand the pain points of extreme users.
As dictated by the Harvard Business School, an exploration of extreme users can be ventured into through several approaches. The analysis of representing extreme characters through personas is one approach, as dictated through Martin Tomitsch's study, however benefits can also present themselves if the extreme consumer is donned by the very designers. This can be seen with studies, such as the redesign of the Ford Focus, that showed the benefits of the methodology by the engineers physically becoming these extreme consumers.
Acclaimed usages of the methodology
Chris Messina and Twitter's hashtags Moreover, often cited as the "father of the hashtag", Chris Messina proposed, a tweet in 2007, the concept of having a metadata tag to group specific events that could be generated by users on the social media platform Twitter to create order in constant streams of tweets. It would, thereby, also allow users to find similar messages and people who are also reacting and replying to this specific theme or event.
Twitter's initial response to this proposition by Messina was quoted to be "these things are for nerds". However, through extreme users of the Twitter platform, as seen with the fire that ravaged through San Diego within 2007, the first "social trend" of a hashtag.
The hashtag "#sandiegofire" allowed users to gain easily updates on the fire location and track constant news outlets. Through this, the benefits were seen by the Twitter platform itself and quickly implemented by the platform. Using the hashtag has become prominent on the internet and, as calculated in 2018, 85% of websites that can be found in the top 50 websites (as based by traffic) use the hashtag. as a way for users to be able to group metadata and content under a specific hashtag.
This use of extreme users adopting this service, proposed by Messina, promoted this thinking of designing for use cases for individuals affected by events like the 2007 wildfires and how specific products will benefit them.
The Nintendo Wii In accordance with the Harvard University Business School, the Nintendo Wii game console stemmed from Nintendo researching into the extreme users of the gaming market, people who hate playing games on gaming consoles. From this, apparent research took place and resulted in an array of information about the struggles of gaming for the "non-gamer". This included that, at the current gaming environment at the time before the launch of the Wii, consoles were too complicated and that the console controllers were too difficult to operate. In response, the Nintendo Wii was born. The controller used motion as its primary input, emulating real-life movement and eliminating the pain points that non-gamers had with traditional game controllers. Moreover, the system's design used easier-to-understand graphics to avoid the convoluted user interface. The Wii was a revolution and, through Nintendo's analysis of extreme users, it created this instant hit of a console. In all the Nintendo Wii is the fifth best selling game console ever put to market"Historical Data: Consolidated Sales Transition by Region" (xlsx). Nintendo. April 27, 2017. Archived from the original on October 26, 2017. Retrieved May 31st, 2019. and has forced the competition in the gaming market to follow suit with its motion controlled gestures that mimic real life.Pogue, David (November 4, 2010). "Kinect Pushes Users Into a Sweaty New Dimension". The New York Times. Retrieved May 31st, 2019 This is abundantly clear with the subsequent creations of the Xbox Kinect and the PlayStation Move. Both these products were made as a result of the design leap that the Wii took from its exploration within the extreme characters design methodology.
The Ford Focus redesign The Ford team used the extreme user approach in their engineering of the Ford Focus. Through their approach of learning from an extreme demographic of the user of their car, the elderly with physical limitations, they were able to dictate the troublesome tasks for this age bracket. By observing this specific user in this demographic, it was clear that their physical constraints made it difficult for them to use different functionalities of the car, such as the seatbelt.
Through using specific body suits that removed motion around the legs, arms and neck movements, with similar constraints put on for hearing and sight, the engineers became this extreme user.
By the engineers becoming the user, they realized how the different designs of the Focus forced difficulty for users with these physical limitations. Thereby, through this method of design, the end redesign of the car focused on this accessibility factor. It allowed for new features that promoted accessibility for not only this demographic, but provided important features for all consumers.
Enhance design creativity and empathy Sujithra Raviselvam's team used instrument adjustments to enable developers to empathize with the inconveniences faced by visually impaired individuals. This allowed developers to develop compassion and connect with them, using the pain points experienced firsthand to inform product development.