Upgrade to Pro — share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …

How to talk to your users

How to talk to your users

Droidcon Turin 2016
#droidconIT

Alex Florescu

April 06, 2016
Tweet

More Decks by Alex Florescu

Other Decks in Programming

Transcript

  1. HOW TO TALK TO YOUR USERS
    DROIDCON TURIN 2016
    Alex Florescu

    @flor3scu
    YPlan

    View Slide

  2. View Slide

  3. HOW…

    View Slide

  4. HOW…

    View Slide

  5. ▸ do we build X?
    ▸ do we solve problem Y?
    ▸ do we architect/test/design?
    HOW…

    View Slide

  6. HOW…

    View Slide

  7. WHAT & WHY

    View Slide

  8. WHAT & WHY
    ▸ What features do we build
    ▸ What features do we remove
    ▸ What apps do we work on
    ▸ Why is this feature/bug important

    View Slide

  9. WHAT & WHY
    ▸ What do users care about?
    ▸ Why do users care about this?

    View Slide

  10. NOT TECHNICAL
    NO CODE

    View Slide

  11. POINTS
    ▸ How do you ask your users about new features
    ▸ No magic wand, just methods & principles
    ▸ How do we ask questions
    ▸ What are the right and wrong questions

    View Slide

  12. WHY?

    View Slide

  13. NOT MY PROBLEM?

    View Slide

  14. WHAT & WHY MATTER!
    ▸ Avoid useless features
    ▸ Avoid building apps that never get downloaded
    ▸ Avoid building solutions in search for problems
    ▸ Understand the user needs
    ▸ Be part of the conversation

    View Slide

  15. WHAT QUESTIONS
    DO YOU ASK?

    View Slide


  16. View Slide

  17. View Slide

  18. EXAMPLE!

    View Slide

  19. COFFEE TRACKING APP
    ▸ Uses magical new technology to precisely track your
    caffeine intake
    ▸ You can see just how much coffee you had
    ▸ Patterns of caffeine spike/drop

    View Slide

  20. DOES IT SOUND
    LIKE A GOOD IDEA?

    View Slide

  21. WOULD YOU WANT
    IT?

    View Slide

  22. WOULD YOU PAY
    FOR IT?

    View Slide

  23. HOW MUCH WOULD
    YOU PAY FOR IT?

    View Slide

  24. FEATURE QUESTIONS
    ▸ Would you want to set a caffeine limit?
    ▸ How do you want to track your drinks?
    ▸ What graphs would you want to see?

    View Slide

  25. EXAMPLE #2

    View Slide

  26. RIVER BUS APP
    ▸ River buses come every 20ish minutes
    ▸ Schedule is a big table
    ▸ This app tells you when the next ones departs

    View Slide

  27. WOULD YOU WANT AN APP
    FOR READING THE
    SCHEDULE?

    View Slide

  28. WOULD YOU WANT TO
    KNOW WHEN THE NEXT
    BUS COMES?

    View Slide

  29. WOULD YOU WANT TO
    GET SERVICE UPDATES?

    View Slide

  30. View Slide

  31. WHAT’S WRONG?
    ▸ Leading questions
    ▸ No commitment required
    ▸ No risk to user
    ▸ Personal involvement
    ▸ Selling, not learning

    View Slide

  32. WHAT’S WRONG?
    ▸ Problem & solution together
    ▸ The questions assume people care & need
    ▸ People wrongly report their habits
    ▸ Personal bias

    View Slide

  33. HOW DO WE FIX
    THIS?

    View Slide

  34. FIRST RULE

    View Slide

  35. RULE #1
    ▸ Don’t mention the app / new feature / idea
    ▸ Don’t describe what you’re building
    ▸ Don’t even say you’re building something
    NEVER MENTION THE APP

    View Slide

  36. NEVER MENTION THE PROBLEM
    ▸ Don’t mention the problem you’re trying to solve
    ▸ Don’t describe what you think are the issues
    ▸ Don’t say you’re building a solution
    RULE #2

    View Slide

  37. DISCOVER THE USER
    ▸ Learn the user’s habits that are relevant
    ▸ Create a portrait of the user
    ▸ The person matters

    View Slide

  38. DISCOVER THE USER
    ▸ Do you drink coffee? How many coffees a day?
    ▸ What coffee do you like?
    ▸ Do you track calories?
    ▸ What was the last app you used today?
    EXAMPLE

    View Slide

  39. ▸ How do you commute to work?
    ▸ How do you go around on weekends?
    ▸ How do you kill time on your commute?
    ▸ Are you a morning person?
    DISCOVER THE USER
    EXAMPLE #2

    View Slide

  40. DISCOVER THE PROBLEM
    ▸ Test your assumptions about the problem
    ▸ Try to determine how people perceive it
    ▸ How big of a problem is it? How painful?

    View Slide

  41. DISCOVER THE PROBLEM
    ▸ Do you worry about drinking too much coffee?
    ▸ Do you have trouble sleeping?
    ▸ Has your doctor asked you to limit caffeine?
    EXAMPLE

    View Slide

  42. ▸ How long do you usually wait for a river bus?
    ▸ What do you do when you wait?
    ▸ Do you know what time your usual service is?
    ▸ When did you last narrowly miss a bus?
    DISCOVER THE PROBLEM
    EXAMPLE #2

    View Slide

  43. DISCOVER THE SOLUTION
    ▸ Work your way towards your solution
    ▸ Start with the problem and let the users describe the
    solution to you
    ▸ If you’re right, you will hear your solution
    ▸ If you’re not, you get valuable insight

    View Slide

  44. DISCOVER THE SOLUTION
    ▸ Do you keep track of how much coffee you drink?
    ▸ If yes, how?
    ▸ If no, why?
    EXAMPLE

    View Slide

  45. ▸ How do you check the time of the next river bus?
    ▸ Where do you find the schedule?
    ▸ How do you make sure you get to work on time?
    DISCOVER THE SOLUTION
    EXAMPLE #2

    View Slide

  46. BE SPECIFIC
    ▸ Start general if needed, but dig into specifics
    ▸ Understand core problems and needs, rather than “feature
    requests”
    ▸ Say “go on”, “tell me more” and “why”

    View Slide

  47. ▸ “I would love to track my coffee consumption”
    ▸ Why?
    ▸ “Yeah, I am worried about drinking too much”
    ▸ Tell me more. Why is that?
    BE SPECIFIC
    EXAMPLE

    View Slide

  48. EXAMPLE #2
    ▸ “I need to know about service disruptions”
    ▸ Why? How do you use that information?
    ▸ “I want realtime schedule updates”
    ▸ Go on. How does that help?
    BE SPECIFIC

    View Slide

  49. ASK THE KEY QUESTIONS
    ▸ How do you deal with it today?
    ▸ Why is it a problem? What makes it so bad?
    ▸ What are you already trying to fix/improve it?
    ▸ How much time does it eat up?
    ▸ What are your priorities/goals/big problems?

    View Slide

  50. BE OBJECTIVE
    ▸ It may be hard to be objective about the results
    ▸ Uninvolved people will be the most objective
    ▸ Believe the story your survey tells you

    View Slide

  51. MAKING SENSE OF RESULTS
    ▸ Patterns will form
    ▸ If not, problem or target are too general
    ▸ Look both at the big picture and the details


    View Slide

  52. FIND TARGET
    ▸ Correlations will highlight certain users groups
    ▸ The “profiling” questions allow you to “know” them

    View Slide

  53. EXAMPLE
    ▸ Big picture: most people don’t track coffee consumption
    ▸ Details: people that do track it also track calories

    View Slide

  54. EXAMPLE #2
    ▸ Big picture: people need an easy way of looking at the
    schedule
    ▸ Details: some people always seem to miss the bus

    View Slide

  55. RINSE & REPEAT
    ▸ Refine problem, solution & target
    ▸ Redo with similar and new questions

    View Slide

  56. HOW DO YOU REACH USERS?
    ▸ In-app surveys
    ▸ Email surveys
    ▸ Street surveys
    ▸ In-person user workshops

    View Slide

  57. TALKING TO USERS IS CHEAP!
    ▸ Building things is very expensive
    ▸ Building the wrong thing can be disastrous
    ▸ Talking to users is, comparatively, almost free
    ▸ It is also perfectly safe

    View Slide

  58. DON’T A/B TESTS SOLVE THIS?
    ▸ A/B tests still require you build “something”
    ▸ You build based on assumption
    ▸ Not applicable to brand new projects
    ▸ Some features are difficult to A/B test 

    (e.g. chat, social features etc.)
    ▸ Some features require a lot of upfront work

    View Slide

  59. SUMMARY
    ▸ Discover, don’t sell
    ▸ Do this early, do it often
    ▸ Everyone’s job to get what & why right
    ▸ Doesn’t replace UX workshops or AB tests

    View Slide

  60. READING
    “The Mom Test” — Rob Fitzpatrick (@robfitz)

    View Slide

  61. THANK YOU
    Alex Florescu

    @flor3scu
    Slides: http://bit.do/droidconIT

    View Slide