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understanding product uses

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CRUX. Copyright © 2013-2014 Profero PLC

understanding product uses

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what?

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what is this for?

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what does it do?

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ok, that’s what the designer says

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what about the users?

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to Google!

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can we see how people use it?

can we see what emotions it evokes?

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to Google!

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...huh

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whoa!

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so what does this product ACTUALLY do?

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so what does this product ACTUALLY do?

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functionally, it

-allows you to save pages to be read later

- saves pages in a nice, easy to read layout

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emotionally, it

- fulfills a need to be on top of things

- a need to not lose interesting things

- a need to defer decision-making and save focus

- for some users the core technical function of ‘saving’ isn’t used or even required!

so what does this product ACTUALLY do?

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This allows us an insight into the true function of this tool:

It allows users to triage information, to reduce cognitive load, to manage attention, to defer decision-making to another time

so what does this product ACTUALLY do?

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this approach holds true for many apps and toolsattention management

(not email processing)

expectation management

(not trip planning)

answers

(not search)

writing

(not typesetting)

workflow triage

(not content creation)

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- Genuinely new products are very rare. Competitor research is important to understand the market and the problem a product solves.

!

so what is this good for?

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- You can determine who your competitors ARE. Instapaper’s obvious competitors are Pocket and Readability, but also attention management tools such as Freedom and Isolator.

so what is this good for?

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- You can do this with a product of your own to determine feature development. ‘Attention management tool’ is a different feature set to ‘article saver’.

so what is this good for?

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- Bloated products like Word and Photoshop are already being undercut by simpler products that address the core need better (like IA Writer, Scrivener, Sketch and Pixelmator)

so what is this good for?

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- PEOPLE ARE NOT (ONLY) RATIONAL - products fill emotional needs as well as utilitarian functions.

- PEOPLE WILL BEND PRODUCTS TO DO WHAT THEY NEED - companies often buy products for business reasons that don’t always align with actual use. Idiosyncratic uses are important, pay attention.

- THE STREET FINDS ITS OWN USE FOR THINGS - products may fulfill a need that you never expected.

takeaways