Defining your Product Strategy using UX

Jacques Woodcock
Defining your product strategy using UX

@jacques_thekit
@kitportal
Thursday, November 17, 11

A little about me...


- Degree in Design


I started by getting my degree in design...

- Degree in Design
- Multimedia Designer


...then started doing multimedia design...

- Degree in Design
- Multimedia Programmer


...then multimedia programming...

- Degree in Design
- Coldfusion, Javascript, PHP


...then started learning most web technologies....

- Degree in Design
- Project Managment


...then on to project management...

- Degree in Design
- Project Managment
- Business Dev, Ops Managment


...business development and operations management...

- Degree in Design
- Project Managment
- Business Dev, Ops Managment
- Strategy/UX


... and am now focusing on strategy and UX.

1 st


First, to make sure we’re all on the same page...

What is UX?


- UX is simply designing for the needs of your end-user in a manner that the end-user would
expect or can easily interpret.

What is UX?


- Of course this is an oversimpliﬁcation but I believe when you get rid of industry jargon,
technical speech, you'll ﬁnd this is the essence.

UX + Business Strategy


- So what does the design have to do with Business Strategy?

Design?


- Well, what is design?

Design?


- Most people will say it's making pretty pictures or something that has to do with art.

Design?


- I argue it has nothing to do with making pretty pictures or art, but it is a creative process.

Design is...


- Design is simply the structuring of elements into a pleasing, or usable, product for the
target audience to consume.


- Okay, so why should we care about UX when deﬁning our products.

UX Design as Business Strategy


- Let's look at it this way. Say, I'm tried of reading stupid websites that rates restaurants from
some ambiguous person's perspective and they use some arbitrary rating system that doesn't
mean anything in the real world.



I'm good with computers so I decide I'm going to make an App that allows my friends to rate
restaurants and this rating system is something like dirty dishes dirty cook, great food, cheep
food poor service, beer selection to die for and so fourth and so fourth.



Then you want to be able to favorite restaurants and book reservations.

UX = Defined


- Well, you've just designed a user experience.

UX != Completed


- Sure, you haven't put drapes on the walls yet, but you know the room has 3 windows,
hardwood ﬂoors and skylight.

Product/Business Model User Experience


- The point is we come up with product ideas, business models and service ideas all based
around delivering a desired experience to a group of users.

Product/Business Model User Experience


- Even if it's providing an experience that you know your users want but they don't know they
want, it's a user experience that you are selling them.

Product/Business Model Incorporated

User Experience


- We seem to forget this when we incorporate.

User Experience User Experience User Experience

Product/Business Model Product/Business Model

Product/Business Model

Market Research Business Climate VC


- We can hide behind market research, business climates and VC questions all day long and
justify changes based on any of these points, but the fact stands that what forces your
concept/product to change is each of these areas' understanding of what best user
experience to deliver.

User Experience User Experience User Experience

Product/Business Model Product/Business Model


Market Research Business Climate VC


- So it alters your original vision. Some times this is good, some times this is bad.

User Experience + Monetize = Product/Business Model


- Of course you still have to ﬁnd a way to monetize your product, but if you are solving a
problem for a user, or should we say a customer, wouldn't they expect to pay you in some
way?


- How many UX designers are here today? You're not going to like this much.

User Experience = Product/Business Model


- Okay, we've deﬁned that our products are packaged user experiences and that all business
strategist are actually part UX designers.



- Boy, UX designers will beat me for saying that.



- So the point here is embrace the fact that you MUST consider the user experience in all your
business decisions, not just from a top level of "this product allows you to rate restaurants"
but all the way down to "you can search by location or name,



then you get a page with all the reviews that you can scroll through and even add your own
review to, or get a phone number, website address or book a reservation, also save to your
favorites."


save to your favorites
book a reservation
get a number/website address

add your own review User Experience
scrollable page with all the
reviews

search by location or name


- Consider this depth of thinking when you consider your strategy.

Innovation


book a reservation

reviews



- I think when you embrace planning your business strategy around your user experience
you'll start to ask the questions that will lead you to innovation.

Innovation


book a reservation

reviews



- Innovation is rarely found in a technology alone, but is found when it's coupled with a user
experience that allows that technology to be easily digestible by large masses of consumers.


I don't want to just sit here and debate deﬁnitions of Business strategy and user experience, I
also want to talk about some techniques and tools for incorporating planning your business
strategy around your user experience.

1. Dialogue


- The most important thing you can do no matter what you sell, is to have an open dialogue
with at least 10 customers that make up the majority of your user demographic.

1. Dialogue


- Get to know these people, ﬁrst names, families, friends, let them get to know you. Buy
them drinks, coffees, lunches, sports games, whatever; just get an open dialogue with them.

1. Dialogue


- You'll ﬁnd that this dialogue will be more crucial to you than just surveying your user base.
You want/need the free opinions of a set of your users to be unﬁltered and unsolicited.

1. Dialogue


- Survey's are typically questions that you answer yourself, from your perspective.

1. Dialogue


- To be a digestible survey, you have to provide preset answers. While you can dive into some
great information, it's still ﬁltered by your preconceived ideas when structuring the
questions.

1. Dialogue


- So have these relationships with an open dialogue.

1. Dialogue


- You'll ﬁnd that you probably already have these relationships, but with other business
owners and other strategic thinkers, but do they use your product everyday?

1. Dialogue


- That's great insight to get, but it doesn't tell you what your users really want and need.

2. Test


- You need to be testing all facets of your product, all the time.

2. Test


- Analytics, AB testing, setting up funnels and heat maps are all great. Use them.

2. Test


- Find out what features are working now and it will help you understand what will work in
the future.

2. Test


- Use them to ﬁne-tune your offering. If less than 10% of your user base is using a feature,
consider dropping it.

2. Test


- You'll save on support of the feature, have a cleaner offering and a tight user experience.

2. Test


- Some tools that I recommend using beyond analytics are focus groups and screen
capturing.

2. Test


- I can't say enough about screen capturing. Check out Lucky Orange. It allows you to
actually see, in realtime, where your users are from, and how they use your site, even all their
mouse movements.

2. Test


- Of course that is great for web offerings, but what about none web-based offerings.

2. Test


- It's hard to think of products now a days that are not tied to the web. Take advantage of
that.

2. Test


- If they are not, focus groups are good, but don't compare to actually going out to see your
product used in the real world.

2. Test


- Look for product groups, or spend time at a shop that sells your product.

3. Prototyping


- So how do you test for new products and business models?

3. Prototyping


- Prototyping.

3. Prototyping


- Quickly mock something up and get it into the hands of your potential users.

3. Prototyping


- You'll get what you spent on the prototype back in knowledge and save in future expenses.

3. Prototyping


- Prototyping can tell you if a product has the potential to sink or swim.

3. Prototyping


- Prototyping doesn't have to be perfect. It's main goal is to start a conversation with your
potential market, to learn what will make it perfect.

4. Refine


- Is there ever a point where a product is perfect? We all know that answer, no.

4. Refine


- Be it for changes in technology, changes in market, or changes in user behaviors.

4. Refine


- Over time, the populace gets smarter about technology and what their expectations
change.

4. Refine


- They may still want to sign up for emails, but the way they want to do it today is not the
same way they wanted to do it 5 years ago.

4. Refine


- So reﬁne.

4. Refine


- A tight product that is easy to understand as much as it's easy to use will never feel old to a
user.

Finishing Up


- Lastly, on the point of ﬁnding innovation in business by focusing on your user experience,
let me ask you what innovation is.

"a new idea, method, or device"


- Webster sums it up as "a new idea, method, or device"

"a new idea, method, or device"


- I believe this to be a wrong deﬁnition of what it means to be innovative.

"the creation of better or more
effective products, processes,
technologies, or ideas that are
accepted by markets,
governments, and society."


- "the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that
are accepted by markets, governments, and society."

Innovation


- This to me means innovation.

New != Innovation
Better = Innovation


- What's the difference, the simple additions of "better".

Better = ?


- What ultimately makes something better?

Better = Problem Solved + UX


- Solving a problem & the user experience.

UX = Product


- Solving a problem & the user experience.

Defining your Product Strategy using UX

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