Main Takeaways:
- Fundamental user needs that the product was originally made for.
- Why we do what we do.
- Highlighting the importance of thinking through the user needs with examples from physical, online, and financial products.
29. User Needs Help Us
● Define product KPIs
● Evaluate our product
● Evaluate competitors
● Define our roadmap
● Define meaningful iterations
● Prioritise features
30. Good Books
● The design of everyday things, Don Norman, 1988
● Inspired, Marty Cagan, 2008
● Build better products, Laura Klein, 2016
31. www.productschool.com
Part-time Product Management, Coding, Data Analytics, Digital
Marketing, UX Design and Product Leadership courses in San
Francisco, Silicon Valley, New York, Santa Monica, Los Angeles,
Austin, Boston, Boulder, Chicago, Denver, Orange County,
Seattle, Bellevue, Washington DC, Toronto, London and Online
Editor's Notes
I don’t want to search for something. I want to find something.
Searching is the means – the mechanism – search by keywords, by asking other people, voice assistant
Thinking about the need to find something means for example that good information architecture might be an OK solution instead of a search box
Investment company – financial products to financial advisers who sold them to their clients
Really good products. Very tax efficient. Financial advisers sold them to their clients and got commission
We used to pay commissions twice a month. Advisers got the money as one lump sum and saw only one line “account fee” on their bank statement.
But.. they had many clients and no way to figure out for which of their clients was the money for..
So they would email us “Can you please provide the fee statement for the recent payment of £££ ?”
Or call us.. twice a month.. every month.. the customer support team would try to find the transaction, look by name, by amount, open different spreadsheets, jump between them to find what the customer wanted and email the customer back as fast as possible.. the customer was happy.. they got their money and a fast response..
They would give us 5 stars for customer service.. The customer support team was busy and happy.. Life was good..
But ultimately we were failing to address the customer’s need – all they wanted was to consolidate their records by having a breakdown
Failure demand: demand generated for a service because the primary need is not met
Where do these needs come from? User interviews
Stories that people say when you ask “tell me about the last episode you made”
Group needs.
Make episode, distribute episode, gauge audience.
Don’t care about “finding a sponsor”
Solve problems that help users satisfy a need. Not machines that produce features as output
Drive behaviour and outcomes: time to produce an episode, number of listeners, number of listener interactions