My program is turning me into a stalker. I have spent countless hours observing people in public spaces — airports, movie theaters, Home Depot — in order to tease out interesting behaviors phrased into “nuggets” like “the Stanford Theater’s comfortable environment means that more people go alone to this theater than a typical first-run” and “waiting to buy coffee in a line that is too constrained makes people feel uncomfortable.” While these nuggets are not terribly profound, they are the first step in a process called “needfinding.”
This process of needfinding is at the heart of Stanford’s human-centered approach to design. The idea is that in order to design products that work for people and fit into their lives, you first need to observe them to determine what they actually need. This process is not as simple as asking someone: “So, what can I design to make your life better?” If people were able to consistently tell you what they needed, the process of ethnography – a term adopted from anthropology, meaning an in-depth interview, observation of, and even participation in a person’s life – would be much easier.
It turns out that many needs in a person’s life are invisible to them. We develop “work-arounds”, like shoving a sugar packet under the leg of a table, or assume the problem lies with us as the user, like the doors you have likely had trouble opening because it wasn’t clear if you were supposed to push or pull. These are simple examples, but the same types of behaviors play out every day for all of us, meaning that in order to truly see what we need, it often takes the fresh eyes of an outside observer.
Right now I’m in the midst of a project called “Moccasins,” in honor of the proverb “in order to understand someone, you must walk a mile in their moccasins.” My partner and I have had a great time riding along with two of the finest drivers at Ellison’s Towing, the local contractor for all of the AAA calls around Stanford. I can’t say enough good things about how friendly and accommodating each and every person there was – from the wonderful receptionist who organized it, to the drivers who let us ask them questions until we were blue in the face.
We have been impressed at the demands of their job — when was the last time you tried to drive on the freeway or back up while towing an SUV? — and the high level of expertise — being able to diagnose a problem from the sound a car makes, and knowing exactly which tools you need and which of the couple dozen car batteries in your arsenal is the one they need installed. It is only when a person is stranded on the highway, has a dead battery when they need to make it to work, or needs their car opened to retrieve the toddler who locked herself in along with the keys that they recognize the heroic nature of this profession.

The drivers treat cars with utmost care, placing a piece of paper under a caution light to prevent damage.
We also noticed that a sense of vulnerability gets in the way of this heroism; the work is dangerous (one driver informed us that 20 times as many tow truck drivers die each year as California Highway Patrol officers) and when a driver arrives, they alone are responsible for solving the problem and satisfying the customer. This is true even if the problem involves cutting down a few trees in order to pull a car out of a ravine (as one driver described doing). There is no back-up when you’re out in the field like that.
Surprisingly, the tools supplied to the drivers interfere with their ability to serve customers. One driver had problems with his gloves — waterproof ones make his hands sweat, bulky ones get in the way, thin ones don’t keep his hands dry in the rain, etc. Another driver explained that oftentimes he will have the battery a car needs, but not the right wrenches, screwdrivers, etc. needed to change it, a problem that has happened enough that he’s resorted to supplementing the company-supplied stock with tools of his own.
Tools are an important part of the job. Each driver maintains their own set. The driver I rode with purchases many of his own in order to be prepared for the newest and rarest cars he encounters.
The process of needfinding is not just identifying “tow truck drivers need better gloves…”; it’s about identifying an entire network of needs “… because they need to be a hero to customers by focusing on solving their car trouble and staying safe along the side of a busy highway.” It is only through this type of in-depth observation that designers can construct this web of needs and design products that make people’s lives better, rather than gadgets you might find in the SkyMall catalog.