Most users are intermediate users. Here’s how you can support them
Understanding what beginners, intermediate and expert users need
I never fully understood one aspect of personas, technological expertise, until it was the focus of my design.
Don’t get me wrong; I understood why it was essential to include that category: if most of your users had low technical knowledge, you would want to ensure the site didn’t require a lot of complex steps.
However, the “Mid” step was often the most confusing. I could imagine “Low” users that barely knew how to use e-mail and “High” users who are technology whizzes, but what exactly was a user with “Mid” technological expertise? Was knowing this even necessary?
The answer, as it turns out, was Yes. For example, when I had to design around three personas, each with “Low,” “Mid,” and “High” technical expertise, I found that these “Mid” users are some of the most critical users when you’re looking to optimize a design for most users.
After all, these “Mid” users are a happy medium that most of your audience will fall into, perpetual intermediates.
Understanding perpetual intermediates
First and foremost, perpetual intermediates are not the “average user.”
There are many problems with designing for the “average user,” the first often being that no actual users fit the description of the average.
Perpetual intermediates, coined by Alan Cooper in About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design, refer to the user’s technology or product use skill level. Cooper argues that most users tend to be intermediates, and they’re who you should optimize your design for.
We can see this in several scenarios, but the best example of this comes from ski resorts. The ‘optimal’ design that most ski resorts follow is a few beginner slopes, a few expert routes, and the majority being intermediate routes. It has nothing to do with the average skier's height and weight, only their skill level.
Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, depending on what you’re designing. Medical devices and software development tools, for example, require users to have a high level of expertise even to understand them. In contrast, public kiosks might never have users move beyond the beginner stage.
However, users tend to gravitate towards becoming users with intermediate skills quickly for many designs. This is for two reasons:
Beginners often operate at a stage of incompetence, which users don’t like feeling.
Becoming an expert requires a constant and heavy time investment to understand the nuances of the program.
As a result, beginners quickly want to become intermediates, and experts might fall back into being intermediates after some time away from the application.
Your design must support all your user groups, but often it’s best to optimize with intermediates in mind. With that in mind, how does that translate into design?
It starts with onboarding beginners and empowering them so that they can quickly become intermediates.
Empowering beginners through a little extra help
“Nobody wants to remain a beginner. It is merely a rite of passage everyone must experience. Good software shortens that passage without bringing attention to it.” — Alan Cooper, About Face 3
Beginners aren’t dumb. Most beginners are very intelligent and busy; they’re just new to your website. So one of the most important things is to make sure you give them just enough information to get started and enough help to become intermediate.
You should keep in mind that you only have 10–20 seconds to establish what your website is about before users click away. As a result, you need to make sure users (especially beginners) understand what you have to offer and that it’s worth their time.
Understanding a user’s mental model comes into play at this stage. Plain and simple language and a clear value proposition help engage users with your site. In addition, offering modals, tooltips, or virtual tours that highlight key features when the user logs in for the first time helps them get used to your product.
However, what matters here is doing “just enough.” The same tutorial that hand-holds beginners through each step will be annoying to other users if it appears every time you log in, so the ability to hide the tutorial (or “Don’t Show me Again”) is necessary. The help should be rapid and targeted and be easily hidden when the user no longer needs it.
Doing so allows beginners to have a smooth transition towards intermediacy.
Experts want powerful and time-saving features.
While there may be a plethora of features experts ask for, they tend to fall into one of two categories:
New, powerful features that address specific needs they encounter
Shortcuts to everything to save time and effort
This is often the result of experts using your product for extended periods and understanding the nuances of everything.
Experts also have a disproportionate influence on less experienced users. As a result, a negative review from them often hurts your product more than good reviews might help from others.
As a result, it’s good to consider a lot of the niche features that they ask for (if you have the resources and it won’t interfere with beginner functionality), as they’re also sometimes ambassadors to the larger community,
Intermediates need core features with the ability to explore
As a whole, designing for intermediates means giving users access to the core tools they need.
This is, of course, what you should do for all your users. Still, Intermediate users follow Ben Schneiderman’s Information-seeking mantra more than anyone else: Overview, Zoom & Filter, then Details on Demand.
Once they have an overview of the core features and are comfortable using them to complete tasks, they’re often motivated to learn more (as long as it doesn’t interfere with their core functionality). Again, this is where having good help and support systems, so they can explore and gain access to advanced features will help them immensely.
Some intermediates will never explore further to become experts. Still, as long as you show that there is more to explore (without interfering with their core functionality), many users will be happy with that.
Design for everyone, and optimize for intermediates.
One phrase often thrown around is that you should design with everyone in mind. While it’s essential to consider the needs of all your users (especially those with disabilities), it’s also important to understand where most of your users will fall.
While it’s essential to pay attention to the needs of beginners and experts, if you don’t have a lot of resources, it’s often optimal to focus on your intermediate users when designing. Doing so makes it so that you can have the most significant impact on many users.
Kai Wong is a Senior UX Designer, Design Writer, and author of the Data and Design newsletter. His new book, Data-informed UX Design, explains small changes you can make regarding data to improve your UX Design process.