AP UX Week '07: User-Centered Design for Evolving Products
[Live bogged notes from Adaptive Path UX Week 2007. User-Centered Design for Evolving Products by Ryan Freitas]
In evolutionary bio, punctuation refers to the emergence of new and distinct species.
At a slow enough pace, gradualism can look like stasis. When change does occur in evolution it happens rapidly.
Reya is an interesting example of this. They spent years developing a complex set of features but it didn't work. They launched like and it took off. This is a perfect example of punctuation.
In a crowded marketplace, differentiation mean survival.
How do we design for this? How is punctuation different than gradual iteration.
Gradualism is about maturation. Punctuation is about redefinition and refinement.
We need to reconfigure our toolset and repurpose our tools for this rapid punctuation.
Toolset for evolution
- restate the value
- tell the story
- atomize the features
- tidy the seams
restate the value
You are not starting with a blank slate. Peel back and try to understand.
Express the value proposition.
- Know your audience
- Know your benefit
- Know your competition
- Know your differentiation
What is your elevator pitch? See Crossing the Chasm and tinyurl.com/2VRYON
for
who
the
isa
that
unlike
we
Use a mad-lib. The goal is common understanding of where you are.
The value statement provides a framework to organize the design activities which follow.
tell the story
How is your product being used right now? How can it evolve to suit current and future users' needs?
Personas tend to be marketing segments with head shots. This kind of persona isn't helpful. Personas are not an end in themselves.
Kevin Brooks: "Weaving technologies into human behaviors."
Personas should inform the story you want to tell. See flickr's about page.
Think about context and what needs you are trying to meet, what story your product will tell.
Use a comic for a day in the life of the product. Where do interactions take place and how? If it has lighter touchpoints think of a relevent timeframe.
See plazes.
Tell stories where product features dissolve naturally into users' existing behavior.
atomize feature sets
Take what is already there and look at the component parts. Ask what lies at the heart of the product?
Look for the "buddha nature," that which is uncreated and indestructible. What is the thing about your product or site that people respond most naturally to? What is the thing that makes people come back despite your mistakes?
See: Ride the winners by Rich Skrenta
He looked for what people were using on topix to understand what people wanted. He dropped everything off except news and build on that.
This is peeling the onion. There are many layers around the core but you are looking for what is most basic.
Plazes needed to get down to communicating location as simply as possible.
They focussed on SMS as the solution and embraced the constraints of the medium: 140 characters.
Atomization refines the teams' priorities for development and execution.
A commitment to simplifying feature set can feed back into the entire design process, simplifying the product.
tidy the seams
See: Conway's Law
If you are not talking to one another you will not see commonality across the different pieces.
This is what happens when things get built in silos. It is hard to think of the core user experience.
The silo-ed way in which you built the channels are not the way in which people are experiencing them. Emphasize the commonality throughout all elements of the experience.
This is not just navigation, that is baseline requirement. We are talking about themes. Twitter, for example, uses identical commands in all channels.
Reduce noise where you can.
Conclusions
Gradualism and punctuation are responses to the same problem. Punctuation offers an opportunity to change direction completely but does have large risks. You potentially alienate the audience you have and not capturing the people you want to bring in.
- Is the current audience the one you want?
- What would you risk to expand the appeal of your product?
Q: More on the limitations of personas?
A: Stories are very helpful and can build on the lessons of persona creation. Imagine that person using the current product.
Q: Where do roadmaps and five year plans fit into this world?
A: Twitter actually has a roadmap that they talk about. Punctuation is dangerous. Changing all the time is just as dangerous as not acknowledging failure. Punctuation does not work if it only comes from the top. It should move from the bottom up.
Iterate the roadmap, not the product.
Q: Is communication enough?
A: Communication is the starting point. Pick the three things that matter the most and start there. Figure out the pieces of the experience that are at the core.
When we talk about experiences defining products, we want to understand what defines the product in the users' minds.
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