Slides from my talks at Optimal Experience in Wellington, New Zealand, and the H2O Summit at LinkedIn HQ, October 2013.

1. Shiny Hammers

2. This is a talk about altruism.

3. Also, vanity and laziness.

4. About alignment of interests.

5. About earning happy customers.

6. And keeping them.

7. By investing in design.

8. Design?

9. Design = creation of
something that does work

10. …so people don’t have to.

11. Design = innovation

12. Design = leverage

13. name, logo, meme
hardware, software, service
recipe, guide, mantra

14. Design is a
fundamental
human pursuit.

15. fire
the wheel
agriculture
architecture
rule of law
medicine
society

16. Design is about
scaling people.

17. Product Design

18. Product design =
investment in customer
acquisition and retention

19. Retention = happiness

20. Happiness?

21. Back to hammers…

22. Everyone has a shiny hammer.

23. The tool you reach for first,
the tool you feel great using.

24. The tool that helps you scale.

25. Three Things to Consider

26. Good
Cheap Fast

27. Utility
Beauty Usability

28. Utility
Beauty Usability

29. Utility = work

30. Utility = capability to do work
(for a customer)

31. Utility
Beauty Usability

32. Usability = cost

33. Usability = cost to access utility

34. Cost = time + $,
fixed and variable

35. Fixed usability cost =
evaluation, implementation,
switching cost, learning curve

36. Variable usability cost =
maintenance, usage,
exception cost

37. Utility
Beauty Usability

38. Beauty = concise
description of value

39. Value = utility × usability

40. Beauty works to
evoke positive emotion,
e.g. confidence, trust.

41. Beauty maximizes the odds
a potential customer will
consider your product

42. …or an existing customer
will evangelize it.

43. Accessible Utility

44. Everything designed has
maximum theoretical utility.

45. Accessible utility =
theoretical utility × usability
= efficiency = value

46. Greater usability = lower cost

47. For equivalent utility,
increased usability =
greater value

48. For each customer,
every product has maximum
utilizable value.

49. (More sophisticated customers
can access greater utility.)

50. Each potential customer
has a budget (time + $)
to invest in your product.

51. To acquire a customer,
you must meet their
accessibility threshold—
their budget.

52. Obviously this is perceptual—
witness success of certain
products, e.g. vices.

53. Surplus Time

54. Great products give time back.

55. Time back = happier customers

56. Customers will
invest surplus time
back into your product.

57. A product that
helps your customers scale,
helps you scale.

58. Organic growth,
user communities,
evangelists.

59. Constraints

60. Why invest in design?

61. Investment in design
invests in your customers
and invests in growth.

62. Investing in design says
“I like my customers” and
“I want more.”

63. Altruism =
“I can help you”

64. Vanity =
“I can help you”

65. Laziness =
“I have limited resources”

66. Designing a product to scale?

67. Where are you constrained?

68. sales
support
development
operations
customers

69. If you have zero customers,
there is only one right answer.

70. Design investment changes
as you build relationships
with customers.

71. Design investment is a deliberate
allocation of resources between
utility, usability, and beauty.

72. Focus shifts as your
target customers change.

73. New needs require
new investment in utility.

74. Growing businesses

75. Enterprise

76. China

77. Invest in usability
to reach customers
with fewer resources
or simpler needs.

79. Maximize share
of existing markets.

80. Empower
the layman.

81. Invest in beauty
to address changing tastes
or new customers with
different tastes.

85. In a competitive environment,
there is no normal.

86. Usability in Practice

87. Avoid falling into
the product trap.

88. Not every usability problem
should be solved with UX.

89. Sometimes it’s cheaper to
throw people at the problem.

90. (Or cheaper people.
It depends where
you’re constrained.)

91. Customer Support

92. Customer support is a great
way to increase usability at
low cost to your customers.

93. It’s also a great
feedback mechanism.

94. Obviously, this isn’t scalable—
“web-scale,” anyway.

95. If you only have 10 customers,
you don’t have a scaling problem.

96. You have a
“I only have 10 customers”
problem.

97. Documentation

98. How fast is your
product evolving?

99. A high rate of change makes
documentation obsolete quickly.

100. Document stable or mature
parts of your product.
Leave the rest to support.

101. Community

102. Do your customers
talk to each other?

103. Do they have surplus time
to spend on your product?

104. Seed a community—
Twitter, Facebook,
forums, mailing lists.

105. Reward altruistic
customer behavior.

106. Interface Design

107. Does your product do
something new,
or something better?

108. M-PESA unlocked banking
for millions in Kenya
via mobile phones.

109. M-PESA delivered demonstrably
less utility than a bank.

110. But with infinitely
greater usability.

111. Minimum Viable *

112. Start here.
Utility

113. Invest a little here.
Beauty Usability

114. And here.
Beauty Usability

115. Start with just enough utility
to get your first customer.

116. Until you know who
your customer really is or
what your product really does,
invest judiciously in
usability and beauty.

117. Usually, that means
for patient customer zero,
usability = you

118. You probably know your
first customer. Spend time
with them. Teach. Listen.

119. At this point,
beauty = also you

120. Since you know your customer,
and presumably they trust you,
they’ll try your product.

121. Try = minimal investment
(time + $)

122. The burden is on you to
prove why your customer
should continue to invest
in your product.

123. Your customer puts in time + $,
and—hopefully—gets utility out.

124. And time back.

125. And greater happiness.

126. Randy Reddig
@rr