We’re in the midst of a fascinating time. For perhaps the first time technology now has the ability to service some of our most passing desires.

Hungry, fancy a bite to eat from that small takeaway nearby? Oh, there’s a service for that. Looking to find eligible singles in close proximity and arrange a date (or several) this evening? There’s an app for that. Do you desire piece of mind, some clear headspace? Well there’s a service for that too.

Is this not the purpose of technology? Our lives have become easier, we can have things at an instance as opposed to fixing our lives around estimated delivery times. It’s often thought that services are directly correlated to needs and desires. If there was no desire for cabs there would be no Uber, if there was no desire for momentary calm during a busy day there would be no meditation or mindfulness applications.

Yet as more and more services move online we question whether ‘desires’ can be truly trusted? What are they key factors which our desires, when we desire what are we actually communicating to the world?

Last year we worked with a platform looking to connect the unemployed with jobs in their local area. Their issue wasn’t so much getting jobs onto the platform, instead in centred around user engagement – getting people to actually apply, take action and contact employers advertising on the platform.

Sounds strange, I mean job search platforms exist for one thing and one thing only, right? GET PEOPLE JOBS.

Yet once we began to speak to users we discovered that beyond the need and desire of employment and by extension security, there was something else left unaddressed. In this instance it related to the type of jobs on the platform. In early user research the company was confronted by prospective users who simply wanted ‘a job’ – they’d be open to anything as long as an opportunity was presented itself.

That hidden factor?

Dignity.

Users wanted a job, yes. Yet they wanted to work in places which gave them a sense of dignity, a feeling that they were making a contribution to the world no matter how small. Employment that would heighten their sense of self-respect.

Outward desires weren’t the whole picture, they didn’t include how they wanted to feel as human beings, especially in the eyes of others or their community. For the client, that meant going back to the drawing board – not just in terms of the types of jobs advertised, but more importantly ‘how’ they advertised them.

For many companies determining what lies underneath customers’ needs and desires can be challenging. The people will always let you know what they want goes the assumption. Yet what if that want or desire is tied to assumptions they make about themselves, assumptions which don’t necessarily ring true in reality?

We believe the answer lies in the questions that we ask ourselves. Ask people want they want, they’ll tell you.

Take some time to observe, listen and allow time to build a synthesis, the answers you get will take you beyond the assumptions.

We believe that for any organisation there are two paths when seeking to understand your customer. You can examine endless metrics and focus groups answers which are likely to confirm, unsurprisingly, some of your own assumptions. The thought being ‘hey, we knew this already – all of our research simply confirms it!’. However, there is a second path – one which asks us to dig a little deeper, this involves actually spending time with the people we’re seeking to help. Understanding their nuances, the unsaid worries or concerns – ironically things which only become ‘obvious’ when big (and expensive) business mistakes are made.

What path are you ready for?