
User-Perceived Value
Capture the numbers, don’t miss the stories
At Rural Senses we use a novel method (the User-Perceived Value Approach)—devised by Cambridge researcher and Rural Senses’ co-founder Stephi Hirmer—that allows us to understand what is important to beneficiaries and to effectively link this to project design. By ensuring that projects target what beneficiaries truly value, the success rate of interventions can be increased.

User-Perceived Value
“User-Perceived Value refers to benefits, concerns and feelings and underlying drivers that vary in importance and act as the main motivators in the lives of the people—as perceived by the beneficiaries at a given time.”
Hirmer, S. (2017
Use the UPV Approach to:
Understand
Develop in-depth understanding of the local conditions
Map
Map UPVs to enable more responsible project planning
Integrate
Integrate project planning to facilitate sectoral integration
Communicate
Use appropriate messaging to increase project buy-in
Monitor
Monitor the change in UPVs to evaluate project impact
What is the UPV Approach?
The UPV approach, consisting of a game and mapping tool (‘UPV wheel’), provides a structured and visual process to identify and map what is important to project beneficiaries. Project beneficiaries often cannot articulate and prioritise what they value and project developers can unwittingly influence beneficiary responses, leading to poorly conceived project designs.
The UPV approach addresses these weaknesses with simple visual tools and indirect probing to uncover what beneficiaries value most. Traditional social data, such as current infrastructure levels, can then be augmented by the factors (UPV) captured. This delivers a more rounded picture of community needs, values and wants, creating a foundation for better inventions at all stages of the project life cycle.
“Coming to an understanding of what customers value is a far more fruitful
exercise than merely asking them to submit their own solutions”.
Ulwick (2002, p. 97)
Want to Learn More?
Much of this work has been published in well-established peer review journals.

UPV framework
A method for determining the ‘User-Perceived Value’ of rural electrification initiatives.

UPV application
The benefits of energy appliances in the off-grid energy sector.

UPV project planning
Recommendations for responsible project planning (PhD thesis).

UPV project planning
An analysis and adoption of existing models and
theories.
Ulwick, A. W. (2002) ‘Turn customer input into innovation’, Harvard Business Review. Harvard Business Review, 80 (1), pp. 91–97. doi: citeulike-article-id:850877.