* UX Strategy ** What is it? It's a high-level plan to achieve one or more business goals under conditions of uncertainty. The strategy decided upon should be shared throughout the team so that everyone can work under the same vision (better team chemistry, unity). Plans may start out naive but as new information and experiences are accumulated, plans will update and be iterated upon. ** UX Strategy The final strategy should be grounded in empirical user research data. How well the UX strategy is executed is a critical deciding factor in the ultimate success of the service. There are four key tenants of UX Strategy: *** Business Strategy This identifies the company's guiding principles for how it will position itself and still achieve its objectives. The business must continually identify and utilize a competitive advantage. The two most common ways to establish an advantage are: 1. cost differential (you're cheaper than competitors) 2. differential technology (disruptive) that sets your company apart from others (people will pay for the added benefits). This can even be shifting UX technology to make the app easier to use. Business model generation is based on empirical user data. Here are major parts of a business model: - customer segments: Who are the customers? What are their goals? What are their behaviors? - Value Proposition: What value (qualitative & quantitative) do we offer? - Channels: How will we reach our customer segment? Is it offline or online? - Customer Relationships: How are we going to acquire and retain our customers? - Revenue Streams: How does the business earn revenue from the value proposition? Are the customers going to pay for it? Do they have other options? - Key Resources: What unique strategic assets must the business have to make the product work? Is it content, capital, or patents? Is this something we must develop? - Key Activities: What uniquely strategic things does the business do to deliver its proposition? Are we optimizing an outdated business process? Are we creating a platform to bring customers together to transact? - Key Partnerships: What partnerships and suppliers do we need in order to deliver our value proposition? - Cost Structure: What are the major costs that will be incurred to make our business model work? Are we trying to cut costs by throwing out the thrills? Are there fixed costs that won't go away? We need product/market fit and enough of a user base to establish a competitive advantage early in the product's life cycle. *** Value Innovation There is a significant advantage to getting into a fresh market that doesn't have competitors. Either way, you should make a product that make people's lives easier, bring customers together, and create new mental models for the business domain. *** Validated User Research Users have to find value in your startup and you need to make sure they're interested using validated user research. Do it often to make sure you're on track. It serves as a reality check on your ideas! Get customer buy in as early as possible through an MVP and pivot if customers aren't interested. The feedback loop is build-measure-learn. The whole team should be involved in the user research process because it helps build the product vision and team consensus. Do it off hours if your company won't allow for user research. *** Killer UX Dope UX practices: - They work with the team early on to develop validation experiments for how well the landing page conveys the company's value proposition - Explore new value in innovations for the product based on techniques like storyboarding and cherry-picking - Learn everything about the market to identify UX opportunities that can be exploited. This provides a leap in value by offering something that makes people's lives more efficient. - They talk directly to potential users or existing power users to discover and validate the product's primary utility. - Use UX in all touch points, online and offline, to create a frictionless experience. ** Validating the Value Proposition You need to ground your product in validated user research. Only the customers can tell you what they want. Make a one to two sentence value proposition for your business. Steps for validation: 1. Define your primary customer segment 2. Identify your customer segment's (biggest) problem 3. Create provisional personas based on your assumptions 4. Conduct customer discovery to validate your solution's initial value proposition 5. Reassess your value proposition based on what you learned! Repeat until you get a product/market fit. *** Identify the problem Write out the customer and problem hypothesis in a statement. Example: "People with disabilities have a hard time traveling and dealing with travel arrangements." Then test it with validated user research. Knowing that the market likes your product idea de-risks the investment you'll making doing product development. Don't build your product's UX around a value proposition unless you have tangible evidence that people will want the product! *** Provisional Persona Personas are a great way to understand your users and empathize with their needs, goals, and motivations. This leads to awesome, "user-friendly" user interfaces. Provisional personas are like quick mock ups of your customer segments. Each persona has four parts: 1. Name + Snapshot: what's their name? What do they look like? What age demographic are they? Sketch them or grab a random Google Image photo. 2. Description: What motivates the customer? Create an archetypical user based on preferences that relate to your product. 3. Behaviors: How are they solving the problem now? Is it via a workaround on the Internet, offline, or both? Is the customer tech savvy enough to use the Internet to solve their problem? Do they use social networks to solve it? Are there general behaviors for customers who are using similar types of digital products that are relevant to your solution? What is their personality like (trusting vs skeptical, good at problem solving, etc.)? 4. Needs and Goals: What motivates the customer to act how they do? What are they missing from the current solution? What specific needs or goals aren't being satisfied by the customer's current behaviors? What deal-breaker issues are they facing? What can they compromise on? *** Customer Validation Get over your fear of talking to users and just DO IT!! Go out with your team and meet with customers one on one. idea -> build -> product -> measure -> data -> learn -> Pick users that match your provisional personas. Use a script like: "Hi, I'm Ed. I'm conducting research on a product idea for an Internet startup. Can you spare a few moments to answer questions related to booking your travels?" Ask screening questions to make sure the person you picked matches your persona. Examples: - "Have you traveled in the last few years?" - "Have you made any special handicapped accommodations while on your trips?" Next ask interview questions to learn about their habits: - "How do you currently arrange a trip? Do you use any online services or call hotels directly?" - "Did you face any challenges when making accommodations for your trip?" - "How did you overcome these challenges? Were there some parts of your trip that you had to compromise on?" - "How did you arrange your handicapped accommodations?" - "Have you had to rent medical equipment while traveling before?" - "Have you ever heard of travel websites like Expedia, Priceline, or Hotels.com?" (if no explain what they are) - "If there were a travel website, like Expedia, that gave you numerous choices of handicap accessible hotel rooms, vehicle rentals, and medical device rentals, would that be useful?" Try to nail down at least 10 interviews! *** Reassess the Value Proposition Did people do what you thought? Do people try to get something but have to compromise with a Band-Aid solution? Three outcomes: - You didn't validate the customer hypothesis, go back to step 1 - You didn't validate the pain point customers experiences, go back to step 2 - You validated both your customer and pain points. Good to move on! ** Conducting Competitive Research - Study up on your market before opening a business. - Investigate the competition. What do they do right? What are they doing wrong? Why should customers come to you? - Admit defeat when you can't make it work (or pivot). *** Competitive Analysis Matrix This is a tool for keeping track of competitor and market details. It gives you a clear understanding of numerous qualitative and quantitative insights. Google docs or another spreadsheet tool works great for this. Look for gaps or inconsistencies in how competitors deliver their services. Value Innovation can come out of details that competitors are missing. *** Understanding Competition Direct competition offers the exact same value proposition to customers and competes for the same customer segment. The indirect competitors offer a different value proposition to your customers or the same value proposition to different customers. People often use your service or a combination of competing services in complex, unintended ways. Make sure you know the competition! record: - website/app store page - username + password: try their service and understand what it offers - purpose of site - year founded - funding rounds (cruchbase) - revenue streams - monthly traffic (Comscore, Quantcase, Alexa) - primary product categories - social media: do they use it? - content types: Is their content text, videos, or photos? How descriptive is it? Is it well organized? - personalization: Are there user profiles, wish lists, custom interfaces, custom content, saved shopping carts, etc. - user generated content: Are the things like hotels reviews submitted by users or message boards? - distinct advantages: Are there unique features that give a competitor an advantage? List the top three. - Heuristic: What do you think? Was it intuitive? Are the design components of the site consistent? Do they have a support system? - customer reviews: What do customers say about the service on 3rd party websites? - team questions - analysis ** Competitive Analysis Competitive Intelligence: the process of breaking down big problems into sub problems that can be acted upon (during the analysis phase). gathering -> analyzing -> execution (strategy) -> planning Don't just do a feature war by comparing your features to a competitor's. Focus on cherry-picking only the best features from competitors that also fit with your service's UX. competitive intelligence steps: 1. Skim and color code each column for highs and lows (green for good, yellow for bad) 2. create logical groupings for comparison 3. Benchmark product attributes and best practices 4. Write the competitive analysis findings (in the last column of the spreadsheet) quantitative: numbers, can be measured, objective structured qualitative: descriptive, observed but not measured, subjective (opinions, reactions, personal tastes, appearance), unstructured ** Storyboarding Value Innovation - timing is everything, being first to market on a product can mean that people don't yet understand how to use the product. - context is key, know how your product's value proposition fits with the market's needs - inventing stuff is step one, closely followed by user adoption, scaling, wider distribution, revenue streams, and a larger team. You'll need an innovative business model. To have a successful product you must offer these things: 1. a significant bump in efficiency 2. solving pain points customers didn't know they had 3. it creates a desire where one didn't exist before Here are some great "secret sauce" recipes for value innovation: 1. The product offers a mash-up of features from competitors and UX influencers. The hybrid must have a much better method for solving a problem than existing alternatives. (Meetup + payment = Eventbrite) 2. The product provides an innovative spin on a value proposition of a larger existing platform. (Google Maps + Crowds Sourcing = Waze) 3. The product combines disparate user experiences into one simple and crucial solution. It becomes a one-stop shop for a user task. (Instagram makes photos + sharing easy) 4. The product brings two separate user segments to the table to negotiate a deal that wasn't possible before. (subletters + travelers = aribnb) *** Key Experiences These are the feature set to your product that defines your value innovation. It's what gives you a competitive advantage! key questions: 1. What will make your provisional personas love this product? 2. What moment or part of the user's journey makes this product unique? 3. Based on your competitive research and analysis, what scenario or feature resolves a big shortfall? 4. What kind of workarounds are your potential customers currently doing to accomplish their goals? example: "Fast and easy trip booking that covers all accessibility needs." *** Using UX Influencers Try checking out non-competitive services to see how they do UX. Are there any parts that could be adapted to your problem? *** Do Feature Comparison List similar features in competing services and compare the features. Deconstruct their approaches and try to think of how it can be simplified. The comparison can help you: - See common user flows through the app (helps for the site map) - Understand user expectations based on the products they're currently using. With this we can try making UI that blows users' minds! - Avoids creating overly complex UI that makes users learn things - Backs up your claims with industry expertise and evidence *** Storyboarding Value Innovation The storyboard visually lays out your product's key experiences. Focus on the most important components of the experience. Start by mapping out the most "valuable" moments for your customer's journey through your system. Put some images together that visualize your storyboard. Grab images from competitor's UIs and tweak them or draw your own (but don't get all detailed). Add a sentence or two to each image. *** Business Model + Value Innovation Value innovation and feature poaching should align with your business model as well as UX. Having a killer UX with value innovation gives your product differentiation and cost leadership. ** Creating Prototypes for Experiments "Theory guides, experiment decides" You don't need an MBA to do a business, just hunker down and use some elbow grease. Start small. Figure out ways to trial a big idea and manage risk by taking action. Place small bets fast. Your research should drive the product development. Good markets will pull product out of a startup. Make something people love. Tests will show what people love and hate. Online MVPs should track key metrics like: how many people landed, what was the bounce rate, conversion rate, how much traffic came from where, how many people purchased, how many people made it down the whole sales funnel? Try using an explainer video on YouTube or a Kickstarter campaign. A concierge MVP will be half-built (usually without a back-end) and any logistical work will be done by hand. Fake it till you make it! Get something off the ground and then build it out to be powerful. *** Solution Prototypes It avoids coding and designing until you have validation that users like your product. Make the minimum amount of screens necessary to demonstrate the key experience of the interface, the value proposition, and a sneak peek of the potential business model. It's not a pixel perfect design yet! pages: 1. Setup - typically the landing page or user dashboard 2. Key UX 1 - In 1-3 screens show the crucial interactions that show value innovation. 3. Key UX 2 - In 1-3 screens show the crucial interactions that show value innovation. 4. Value Proposition - This is the final result of a successful transaction 5. Pricing Strategy - Shows the cost of the app, monthly fees, package costs, etc. Build it with some prototyping tool. Google presentations works fine and exports to PDF. Present that to users and see what they think. Look at your prototype and list what resources, partnerships, and revenue you'll need to create what's in the prototype. ** Guerrilla User Research Test your business model, value proposition, and UI in front of real users! Usability testing is where you observe the user trying out your app. How many clicks does it take them to perform a task? How long do they take to understand your product? Do they use the product correctly? usertesting.com works for doing this online. *** Guerrilla Research Guerrilla research is doing user research while competing against time, money, and resources. Move fast and get it done. Are you targeting the correct customer segment? Are you solving a common pain point the customer has? Is the solution you are proposing something they would use? Would they pay for the product and if not are there other revenue streams? Does the business model work? There are three major phases: planning, interview, and analysis. plan by: 1. determine the objectives of the study 2. Prepare questions for user validation 3. Scout out a local venue for interviews and figure out logistics 4. Advertise for participants 5. Screen participants and give them time slots Focus on the parts you're not sure about that NEED validation. Try fishing around with open ended questions too. What does the user think about the space in general? Are there new opportunities in light of their comments? ** Designing for Conversion You must design an efficient funnel for your product that engage first-time visitors and turn them into repeat customers. As people begin entering from the top of the funnel, you must immediately track and measure all the crucial data points along the way so that you can validate your product's success. Growth hacking ties your viral and ad campaigns to user engagement so you can identify the most valuable marketing channels. This is a constant process of tweaks using things like A/B testing and social media integration. The funnel matrix is a tool for cloud based analytics. It informs the user flow, feature list, and a short list of wireframes to be designed or redesigned for better user actions. It gives insight into customer actions that can help drive future product development. The matrix shows how a user goes from internet Googler to satisfied user. All parties must think through the required actions of potential users with the funnel matrix. It also performs validation, measurement, and learning ways to optimize user experience and conversion rates. When wireframming your project, speculate on the key metrics you might use. What stages will a hypothetical user take to become a "repeat user" or basic customer. If someone sees your ad on Facebook, how many steps do they go through before being a customer? They must be funneled through your system to get a deeper interaction. Each row of the matrix shows a snapshot of the user story as they moves through the stages from first-time exposure to a dedicated user who eventually helps you to market your product. Give yourself a time limit to making the conversions happen. If it fails to convert by the end, pivot or give up. Here are 3 common analytic tools: - enterprise analytics systems (google anlaytics) - dashboard, funnel conversion, a/b testing (mixpanel, kissmetrics) - email delivery/tracking (mailchimp) Landing page experiments are a quick and dirty way to be exposed to users without having a full service up and running. Here's how to set one up: 1. Define the experiment and determine which customers from the funnel matrix you'll be testing. Are you testing the value proposition or doing a quick user acquisition push? 2. Design/build the landing page. Do a quick 30 second video to pitch your value proposition. Say thanks to users. 3. Design/build secondary pages. Run variations of the page with different UI patterns and features (with a/b testing). 4. Run the campaign for a set amount of time (usually around a week). 5. Measure the metrics for validated learning. How does this relate back to you funnel? Does it prove or disprove a desired action in the funnel? A simple ecosystem map can help lay out competition too. It lists the competitors in your space, what's good and bad about each one, and how close each are to your value proposition. ** Bonus (how to prototype) Sketches are great when outlining initial ideas about layout, page structure, and app structure. After you have a rough layout idea you can move on to adding colored images and UI elements like buttons. Paper is fast so start there! *** Paper prototyping paper uses: - map key user interactions - purposeful use of color - explore elevation and shadows Simulate interactions with paper prototypes by cutting out pieces of paper and moving them to emulate the CSS animations. For example, click a button and have a slide in from the right on mobile to simulate a nested page transition. Record these animations with your phone so you know what things look like later (gifs work too). Print out existing screens to save effort. Google's material design can be used for color, elevation, shadow, layout, etc (it's inspired by plain paper and ink). *** Digital prototypes This is all about creating an interactive digital prototype so other people can check out what you're thinking about. It's still much faster than writing out code for the app. Build UIs that run on a phone and have interactive gestures like tap targets and swiping. The prototype should transition between pages and modals just like the real app. *** Native prototype We'll use real code for an actual product in this stage! Build and test your design ideas on real devices. Use the "hacker mentality" here. Just get it done! Do shortcuts and quick hacks to get the code pushed into a real product. Ask users for specific, actionable assessments for the features in your app. The native prototype is great for pitching your product to stakeholders and investors.