Do We Really Understand Our Users?
More often than not, when we're designing a product, we are not the target users of that product. As a result, we rely on personas to simulate user needs and try to see things from their perspective.
But just when I thought I had a good grasp of our users, a few real user interviews left me completely shocked—we had built many features, but the ones users truly needed were left unaddressed. That made me reflect: Do we really understand our users, or do we just think we do?
While taking Lydia’s "UX Value Realization" course, I had an important realization—only through immersive experience can team members truly discover the strengths and weaknesses of our product. This helps us get closer to actual user needs, shifting the product development mindset from "data and assumptions" to "real experiences and observations."
But here’s the problem—our product is a B2B clinic management system, and none of our team members have experience running a clinic. So how could we create a realistic environment that would allow our team to truly immerse themselves in the users’ world?
After several rounds of discussion and planning, we decided to host a "Virtual Clinic Competition"—a way for our team to personally use our system and uncover product pain points and improvement opportunities through hands-on experience.
The competition lasted two weeks, with team members spending 2–3 hours each afternoon completing a series of clinic management challenges. Through this process, we aimed to achieve the following goals:
Objectives
- Allow team members to experience the full workflow of the clinic management system, and understand how it impacts clinic operations.
- Promote deep understanding of real user scenarios and pain points, shifting the perspective from “developer” to “user.”
- Gather concrete product improvement suggestions, identifying which workflows are unintuitive and which features need further optimization.
This wasn’t just a learning exercise—it was a full-on “Eat Your Own Dog Food” experiment, turning ourselves into users to put our product’s real value to the test.
Challenge: New Tasks Every Day, Every Clinic Competing for Patient Bookings
The core goal of this competition wasn’t just to test system operations—it was to simulate the real-life challenges of running a clinic. Each team worked to attract more patients and improve operational efficiency. Every daily challenge was designed around enhancing the clinic’s competitiveness, from setting up clinic profiles and optimizing the appointment process to responding to unexpected situations. Each task tested the participants’ adaptability and their familiarity with the system.
What truly surprised us, however, was that this competition didn’t just teach everyone how to use our product—it unleashed a wave of creativity and collaborative energy across the team.
We initially expected participants to simply follow the rules and complete their tasks. But the level of engagement far exceeded our expectations. Designers, engineers, and sales team members alike proactively identified and fixed bugs within the product. Tasks that would normally require multiple follow-ups were now being tackled spontaneously. It was as if everyone had entered a flow state—when encountering system issues or inefficient workflows, engineers would immediately suggest improvements and point out architectural bottlenecks; frontend developers proposed UI optimizations to streamline the user experience; designers offered UX enhancements to ensure that every interaction was intuitive and user-friendly.
These cross-functional discussions and collaborations—from bug fixes to workflow enhancements—made the competition far more valuable than just a game. During this challenge, the teams weren’t just completing tasks—they were actively pushing the product forward. That, for us, was the most rewarding outcome of all.
The image shows the virtual clinics created by the team.
What Did We Truly Learn?
The original goal of this competition was to help team members better understand user needs through an immersive experience, and to uncover pain points in our product.
But in reality, the outcome far exceeded our expectations.
- We Fixed System Bugs and Improved Several User Interactions
Many subtle issues that were previously hidden behind data—and difficult to detect—surfaced clearly during the competition. From fine-tuning the appointment booking flow to enhancing visual responsiveness on mobile devices, the team was able to identify real user experience problems by using the product themselves. Better yet, many of these issues were addressed and improved on the spot during the event.
- Enhanced cross-functional communication led to product decisions that better reflect real user needs.
In the past, product managers often had to make judgment calls on user requests based solely on feedback relayed by BDs or AMs—essentially guessing whether a particular need truly reflected the broader user base.
But through this experience of "becoming the user", our design, development, and business teams were able to reach alignment much faster than before. Designers no longer had to imagine user scenarios from scratch; engineers could intuitively understand design requirements; and every part of the communication process became smoother and more efficient.
- Team members truly developed a user-centered mindset
After the competition ended, we noticed a real shift: team members began to think more proactively from the user's perspective. When tackling tasks, the mindset had changed. Instead of starting with “Is this technically feasible?”, people began asking, “Is this actually helpful for the user? Is there a more intuitive or seamless solution?”
This kind of user-centered thinking is taking root within the team, gradually reshaping the way we make decisions.
The competition made us realize something fundamental—truly understanding users doesn’t come from data or assumptions alone, but from firsthand experience and active participation.
Looking ahead, we hope to make this kind of “Eat Your Own Dog Food” initiative a regular part of our culture. We plan to run internal experience-based activities more frequently, so that every team member can step into the user's shoes—not just designing for users, but growing with them, and building products that truly meet their needs.
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