How to get users to help you make products?

Good product designers should learn to "talk to most people, listen to the views of the minority, make their own decisions", this sentence from the Analects of Baidu, said that the product team to make decisions within a basic method. But I want to extend it to the outside of the product, to the users of the product, because your product is to do for people, not to entertain the product, so, "mining the needs of most users, listen to the views of a few users, make their own decisions" is a user to help you do the basic method of products. Because recently in contact with some of the work of research, but also in their own personal collection of competition users feedback, so there are some small experience in this area, I hope to share with you.

How to let users help us make products? Let me first introduce some basic concepts:

high-end users: active in the industry wave of the target users: product design at the beginning of the development of potential users typical users: very clear target users similar users: users of similar or similar products real users: the real user of the use of products: more forward-looking users, Their needs represent the future of the universal needs of the new adopters: like to try fresh things, there is no clear demand for the core users: a strong loyalty to the product users one, high-end users are sometimes the pilot-type user

Sometimes we emphasize not to be misled by high-end users, think that the needs of high-end users will deviate from the needs of real users, in fact, high-end users are often the leading users (lead user), their needs are sometimes forward-looking, can take their needs to the real user to verify, perhaps there can be a different breakthrough. But to avoid the taste of the users, because they just like the novelty, they have a strong tolerance, like to try all kinds of things that may help themselves, but not sure what they need. For example, recently I went to a product forum to look around, found that their real users of the demand, it was I imagined the needs of high-end users, but also a high voice, it is not hard to believe that hardware equipment is a 18-month renewal of the speed of rapid development, today Symbian user hair map may still have obstacles, 18 months later, maybe the thousand-yuan computer video broadcast is not much of a problem.

second, the beginning of product design will have the target users

At the beginning of product design, it is often necessary to define personas (Persona), and personas can be drawn from our typical users, but personas must not be plotted by imagination, but by talking to real users, knowing their true preferences, personalities, and so on. And when we do not have a typical user, we need to first set the target users, and according to the target users to find some living targets, for the ethnographic study (ethnography Research) or user log. Ethnographic research requires staying with users, observing their activities related to the use of similar products, and other daily activities, a bit like field studies. The user log can last a week or more, often allowing users to record their activities, feelings, and expectations every day or every few hours. The product team often treats its needs as a user's needs, defining the target user at the beginning of the design, and mapping personas to avoid making such mistakes.

third, the time to spy on real users and similar users

After the product is on line, you can build some online forums, circle, QQ group to collect user feedback, and rely on a number of operational activities, points exchange activities such as the accumulation of user initiative to participate in the project, put forward their views or suggestions, through such user collaboration, basically can get very timely and free feedback. And, don't forget, your competitor also has similar feedback forum, group, may as well as an undercover user's identity lurking in, to see users of the product feedback, what is their need to learn from the place. Of course, the micro-era, an official micro-blog is also essential, the official microblogging can become your information dissemination and collection channels, where through the keyword time to focus on the microblogging user feedback, and timely reply, answer questions, will give you a very good corporate image.

Iv. get improvement advice from real users

Real users are your greatest asset, and you can intuitively infer their usage and requirements from their use of data, and of course, you have a very strong ability to interpret data. You can also ask the real user to come over to do usability testing and discover the experience problem in the product. But the best quantitative data analysis and qualitative user testing can be mutually validated, for example, data feedback users before purchase to verify the mobile phone number of this step loss ratio is large, and usability testing, found that the user in the verification of the mobile phone number of that step do not know the need to click to send the verification code, so that the process jammed, can not continue. So you know, there's a problem with the design here.

Five, from the core users to the special user

Once the product is released, it is necessary to undergo sharpening in a natural ecosystem, and the recommendation of the core users will allow the product to form a virtuous circle. It is better to find some special users from the core users, every time there is no release of the beta version can give them experience, humble listen to their opinions, encourage them to show off in various occasions their own priority to the product. The special user cannot too many, loses the sense of honor too many, moreover the special user request is the product latent target user, must not be the delicacy type user. If you don't have a few special subscribers on hand, go and recruit. This is what I learned in Revelation, see Chapter 15th.

VI, the user needs classification

"Innovationx" is a good sentence in the book, "the user's needs can be divided into functional requirements and experience requirements, but in addition to other aspects to analyze the user's needs: The requirements in the existing products have been satisfied or not satisfied?" Is the demand clearly stated by the user or hidden behind a multitude of representations and messages? In these ways, you can assign requirements to a matrix of 2 times 2.

For version upgrades, the most important and urgent, is certainly the priority to address the expectations of unmet needs, and for new products, if the competitor does not solve the expected unmet needs, then you provide such services, it is really solve the user's pain point, there will be more optimistic about the rising space, If competitors are likely to quickly address unmet needs, and you need a lot of time to address unmet needs, it may be a bit of a loss to think about the unresolved needs of moving forward, a demand that is truly a potential core requirement.

Finally, our goal is to create valuable, viable, usable products, hope to stand in the user's position, with the help of the user's strength, to assist us to achieve this goal.

Source: http://elya.cc/product/1009.html