When designing a service/product there are several disciplines that are overlapping during the process in order to build the right combination of features for the potential users. This process is full of uncertainty and it requires you to wear several hats: user, product, business, tech…
Personally I found that to have a complete 360º view of the product you are building, it is necessary to work between UX research, service design, growth, and product management. This is what I define as Product Sweet Spot (PSS).
The four areas included in the PSS have specific goals, tools and questions to be answered. Let’s dig deeper in these areas individually.
UX research
Goal: Understanding the needs, pains and potential gains of your target user. Understand human behavior in certain situations and contexts to find patterns that can lead to potential solutions. It is important to find users who really feel the pain to uncover latent opportunities. “Find something that people want” In summary, it is an exploration of the user’s lives to validate the initial hypotheses created by the team.
Tools: In depth interviews, user diaries, context mapping.
Questions:Did you identify the real pain of your user? Did you understand the whole user context and the drivers of her behavior? Do you know the Why’s of the most repeated actions?
Service design
Goal: Define the step by step experience of the customer along the service. Connect the ideal user experience with the backend technology and processes supporting it to deliver the right value proposition.
It can be used to diagnose existing flawed services and to build new brand services from scratch. It applies systemic thinking to connect different stakeholders and align value propositions among them. It can combine physical and digital experiences.
Tools: Customer Journey, service blueprint, digital prototyping
Questions: How can we build the MVP? Which phase of the service is more painful? Is it a human or tech problem? Which pain points are basic, provide performance or create excitement? How do you orchestrate your touchpoints to provide the ideal value proposition? What is your WOW moment for the user? How do you combine digital and physical communication?
Growth
Goal: Have a clear overview of your product performance to make decisions that help it grow. Identify the most relevant metrics for your product and define the conversion funnel in detail for the different user personas and cohorts who are using your product.
Tools: Events Tracking plan, Mixpanel, Tableau, Amplitude, Google Analytics, Hotjar
Questions: How do you acquire customers? How long does it take to get the value of your product?
How is your user retention working? Do your users have problems with the service? Why don’t they come back? Are they using your product frequently? Are your users engaged? How many of your users are considered power users? What is the learning curve of your users? Do they need a lot of knowledge to reach the WOW moment? In which layer of the funnel are you losing the most of your leads?
Product management
Goal: Execution and prioritization of the product roadmap by balancing business and customer needs. Value proposition iteration and designing potential revenue streams of your product are key components of the role. Clear communication between product stakeholders is one of the superpowers required for PMs, to align the why (product vision) what (product features) and how (product team processes).
Tools: Roadmapping, Trello, Notion, Asana, Jira, G Slides,
Questions:Which is the most wanted feature for our users? What is the most value feature of your product? What’s coming next? How can we monetize our power users? What else can we offer them? Is this feature premium or basic? In which features are our users willing to pay extra to have them? What is the correct pricing for our basic product? What is our 3 month product roadmap?
Then, why should you position yourself at the PSS to build a product?
- You need to listen to users constantly.
- You need to define a service experience that provides the minimum value expected by the user while ensuring the feasibility and performance of the technology.
- You need to measure user acquisition and retention and build strategies to increase usage and revenue.
- You need to prioritize user needs and business goals to execute your roadmap.
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