by John Mansour |
06.11.2008
|
The holy grail of product usability is attained when your product offers such a compelling experience users feel obligated to recommend it to others. It works wonders on your top line.
If your customers aren't taking it upon themselves to promote your product, make the following three tenets part of your product design DNA and more revenue will follow.
- Intent. Before any requirements are written and designs are penned, clearly state the overall intent of every product as it relates to the objectives of your target customers. For example...to help our customers hire the best possible candidate...to reduce the cost of operating the call center while improving the customer experience. When the intent is clearly defined it's easy to tie all requirements and designs to that objective and ensure every project starts on the right foot.
- People. Dedicate fulltime people to user interaction design. It's not the second string job of a product manager or engineer. Great usability not only requires dedicated domain and usability experts, it also requires validation very early in the design phase by those who will eventually use it.
GoToMeeting, Progressive Auto Insurance and Apple have nailed this one, just to name a few. Web conferencing, buying auto insurance and using a smart phone don't get any easier.
- "What if" Scenarios. This is where much of the scope-creep and subsequent usability sacrifices occur. Spend the time up front outlining common what-if scenarios and your products will be inherently easier to use.
Take self pay parking stations in airport parking lots. What if you spend ten minutes driving through the entire parking lot and there are no spaces available? The automated attendant should let you out without requiring payment. Consider the consequences if this scenario wasn't accounted for. The intent of providing a better customer experience at a lower cost gets completely blown out of the water.
|
|
Last Updated ( 09.16.2008 )
|
Resources 
