How to better ensure a successful product

You’re just starting out with a brilliant idea for a digital product. You have the vision, the drive and the right people on board to make this a success. But how exactly do you make sure your product is successful?

It’s a common story. New products are launched all the time but not all of them make it to the dizzying heights of success that were initially envisioned. It’s an astonishing fact that 60 - 70% of new products fail - that’s an uncomfortably high statistic for product owners. And even worldwide digital heavyweights have failed - remember Facebook Home, TwitterPeek the Twitter only mobile device and Google +? What’s the number one reason why new products fail? Because no one needs them, there’s just no market demand for them. So, what can you do to avoid this unwelcome situation?

First step - User centred design

The most important starting questions every product owner or designer should ask are: 1. What exactly do users need? And 2. How can we address that need? Realising and fully understanding the users’ problem and pain points ensures that you get on the right track in developing something they really need, which solves their problem and which they will ultimately use. Enter: user centred design.

User centred design is an approach to the design process which focuses as much as possible on the end user - the person who will be using your product everyday. This involves firstly knowing who your target user is and getting to know them well - their environment, their typical tasks (with respect to your product area), their problems and gripes, and the current work-arounds they’re employing. This allows you to empathise with your users which is a key ingredient in coming up with the best solution for them. This information is usually gathered at the beginning of the design process through various user research techniques such as interviews, surveys, observations, focus groups or diary studies. Using this gathered information, it’s common in the design field to draw up personas - fictional but archetypal representations of your user(s) - and stick them around the office for the whole team to see. Keeping the personas in clear view puts the user at the focus of your efforts, which is their rightful position, and ensures the whole team are on the same page. And what if something arises later in the product development process that needs clarifying? Go back and ask the user.

Getting the product solution

So, once you’ve done your research and understand your users and their problems and needs, how can you then address their needs? This starts with being clear about which of the users’ problems you want to solve exactly; it’s improbable that you can solve all their problems, so just choose one. Since our brains are wired to answer questions, it’s effective to define the chosen problem as a ‘How might we…?’ question, which is common practice in design thinking methodology. Framing the issue in this way provokes meaningful and relevant ideas and invites you and your team to brainstorm possible solutions. Ideate as much as possible, even if the differences between ideas are only small, this contributes to a higher chance that you come up with just the right solution for your users. What’s also important is that users should be satisfied and delighted by your product. Paying attention to the product’s aesthetics and appealing to the users’ senses will serve well to engender positive feelings.

Prototyping and testing with users

A truly user centred design mentality involves the user at every possible stage of the product development process. So, when you come up with a solution you think will work, it’s highly advisable to create a prototype first and test it with your target users BEFORE any coding is done. Development and maintenance costs can be high, so what happens when you build something that needs to be changed because you find out afterwards that users need something additional or different? You lose money and time, and quite possibly, trust from your users. User testing with a prototype is a cost effective way to discover user’s general reactions to your design, test your concept, validate the product’s functions and uncover any usability issues.

Continuous improvement

The process doesn’t stop at one prototype and one round of user testing. When you update the design based on the feedback from user testing, how do you know you interpreted users’ feedback correctly and the changes are appropriate? Making sure your product fully meets the needs of your users requires continuous feedback from users and constant improvement to the design through iteration cycles. Having a plan in place for carrying out iteration cycles that is congruent with your timeframe and budget will be helpful to you. The agile method of sprint cycles, where the product team work on an agreed deliverable for 2-4 weeks, is a structured and effective way to develop your product incrementally. Through successive sprint cycles, it’s easier to iterate in response to feedback and design changes, until, piece by piece, your product comes together.

User awareness and understanding

At last, you’ve built a great product, but somehow it fails to generate the sales or usage that it deserves. One reason could be that users don’t know your product or service exists, or they don’t understand it. With today’s social media culture, brand awareness can be achieved easily through setting up a presence on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, or getting social media influencers to showcase your product in a desirable light. Given that the number one place for anyone’s enquiry is Google, and that most people don’t look further than the first page of results, it’s worth getting to grips with search engine optimisation (SEO) and ensuring that your product appears as high on the search results list as possible. Google AdSense Auto Ads is also a useful tool which uses machine learning to automatically place your ad on websites relevant to your product and target audience. Just as important as brand/product awareness is that users should understand exactly the value of your product and what benefits it can bring them, so make sure you communicate this clearly and succinctly.

Building the perfect digital product is far from easy, but employing a user centred, iterative approach will increase your chances of building a product that people need and want. So don’t wallow in the wastelands with the non user-enlightened folk - get researching, get designing, get testing, get iterating.