Get to actually see your user
Get to actually see your user
How one afternoon got a product team back in touch with the people they were building for.
How one afternoon got a product team back in touch with the people they were building for.
Client
King
Services
Inspiration
Field Notes
Year
Client
King
Services
Inspiration
Field Notes
Year
The Candy Crush Soda team at King was full of smart, talented people who knew their product inside out. That was exactly the problem.
When you work on the same product every day, you stop seeing what is hard about it. The features that feel obvious to you were built over years of decisions, shortcuts and fixes. To a new user? They are anything but obvious.
Too many people on the team had not sat with a real user in a long time. So I introduced the Empathy Power Hour: two hours designed to get a team back in the room with real users, and remind them what it feels like to be a complete beginner.
The Candy Crush Soda team at King was full of smart, talented people who knew their product inside out. That was exactly the problem.
When you work on the same product every day, you stop seeing what is hard about it. The features that feel obvious to you were built over years of decisions, shortcuts and fixes. To a new user? They are anything but obvious.
Too many people on the team had not sat with a real user in a long time. So I introduced the Empathy Power Hour: two hours designed to get a team back in the room with real users, and remind them what it feels like to be a complete beginner.
Challenges
Getting the team back in the room with real users
Too close to their own product to see it clearly
The onboarding gap nobody knew existed
Turning observations into urgency
What we did
Before the session, I ran 10 unmoderated user interviews. The team did not watch them live. They came fresh on the day. During the workshop, colleagues paired up, two by two, and watched one user navigate the product together. No moderator. No steering. Just watching. Then we came together as a full group to discuss what everyone had seen. Two hours. Ten users. One team that walked out seeing their own product completely differently.
Before the session, I ran 10 unmoderated user interviews. The team did not watch them live. They came fresh on the day. During the workshop, colleagues paired up, two by two, and watched one user navigate the product together. No moderator. No steering. Just watching. Then we came together as a full group to discuss what everyone had seen. Two hours. Ten users. One team that walked out seeing their own product completely differently.
Insights land differently when the team finds them
The session was designed so no one could be passive. Pairs watched together, discussed together, and reported back to the group. By the end, these were not Kim's research findings on a slide deck. They were the team's own observations. That changes how seriously people take them.
The session was designed so no one could be passive. Pairs watched together, discussed together, and reported back to the group. By the end, these were not Kim's research findings on a slide deck. They were the team's own observations. That changes how seriously people take them.
What happened next
The session landed so well with the Soda team that the work did not stop there. I was invited to run a company-wide "get to know your user" quiz at the King all-hands meeting, bringing the same energy to teams across the company who had never been in the same room as a real user. That is what happens when a team falls back in love with their users.
The session landed so well with the Soda team that the work did not stop there. I was invited to run a company-wide "get to know your user" quiz at the King all-hands meeting, bringing the same energy to teams across the company who had never been in the same room as a real user. That is what happens when a team falls back in love with their users.
Gallery
"Oh wow, this was SO useful. I haven't seen users onboarding, like, ever. Leadership should see this!"
Game Designer
"Oh wow, this was SO useful. I haven't seen users onboarding, like, ever. Leadership should see this!"
Game Designer
Other Projects
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Copyright © 2026 Expedition UX
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Copyright © 2026 Expedition UX