UX 101 for Startups

8/9/2019 UX 101 for Startups

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UX 101 for startups

“Customers don’t care about your f#$%*g solution, they care about theirproblems.”—Dave McClure

Useful rst, usable later: Is a Banana Peeler a useful product?Product & services must be useful before being usable. They must haveclear utility value by fullling a physical or a psychological humanneed.

Why is your product useful?

Laser focus: What’s common between Instagram, Dropbox, Basecamp,and Airbnb? All they do and they all do just one thing & do it damn well!“If you chase two rabbits, you catch none.” —ConfuciusHave one key product promise. And, have laser-sharp focus to ensurethe key promise of the product is fullled in a great way.

Startups itch to add too many diversied features making bloatedproducts, which are neither useful nor usable, let alone buyable.What key promise have you made to your product’s users?

Minimum payable product: People talk about minimal viableproducts, however, MVPs are usually crappy. Not because they aremade by incompetent people but because they are made for early release, not from a buyer’s or users’ point of view. Not because theseproducts cannot do things, but because these products do things that

users really do not want to achieve.So, throw useless MVPs out of the window and start with releasing aminimal product people are willing to pay for. Start with a minimalproduct that delights users!What is one big reason a customer will pay to use your product? What reallyis the soul of your product?

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UX is not just UI: If you think beautiful looking interfaces with fancy buttons is good UX, you are in for a rude shock:User eXperience (UX) is really about being useful, usable, andmeaningful to users while UI and Visual Design ensures that theproduct nally ‘looks’ good.

Would your product rather be useful, usable, and meaningful OR a goodlooking?

UX is all about users: UX is about being useful, usable, andmeaningful to users. So, if you do not deeply understand the users of your products, you cannot do any meaningful product design.Its never too late to nd some real users, go and observe what they dothroughout the day or ask them to show what they do. You will know alot more about how to design your product in a fundamentally

different way. Remember, users are denitely not your grand-mom,dad, girlfriend, or a colleague!Have you met atleast 10 real and potential users of your product?

Use Empathy: Many startup CEOs believe that Axure and Photoshopare the most useful UX tools. Interestingly, they are all thinking of UIand not UX!Have you heard of this amazing tool called Empathy? Empathy is used by the leading innovation professionals across the globe to design

amazing products. Yes, I am talking about simple, plain human empathy. Empathy is thecapacity to recognize emotions that are being experienced by others— your users. You empathise when you feel what the other person isfeeling, when you mimic their expression, hopes, desires, and pains.If you keep building products in isolation, you usually build productsthat no one wants. When you empathise with your users, you buildgreat products.Can you tell 5 amazing user stories about your product?

Nail concept design on paper: When you design a concept with pixelperfect accuracy, the user feedback is all about colours, fonts, andalignment. The feedback is never about the concept.However, when you sketch the concept on paper or whiteboard, theusers talk about usefulness and usability of the product, that’s what you really need! Paper prototypes are quick, easy, iterative, and come

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at zero cost. Plus, you get feedback about the product concept.Once you have nailed the concept, it’s time to move to detailed wireframes using early prototyping tools.

Design is iterative: Marketing guys use market simulations andsoftware engineers make tests. Designers also need to test tounderstand design problems and rene. In design profession, thetesting is done with real users using various stages of prototypes.The best designers in the world swear by design > user test > designcycles. If you don’t test with real users, you really don’t know what isgoing wrong with the design.Test early and test often, that will give you the condence to build anamazingly useful and usable product. Throw away designs early if they do not work, don’t be afraid to design again. Iterate, iterate, and

iterate.

Scrap surveys: It is easy to ask users ‘What do you like?,’ ‘What isgood and bad about this product?,’ or ‘How can I improve thisproduct?’ All the above questions will give you user opinions, which are knownto be very biased, not good at all for a startup product. So askingopinions is what you must NEVER do!Surveys are biased opinions, throw survey results in the trash can,

their perfect place! What you need is to understand user behaviour.“It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, peopledon’t know what they want until you show it to them.” —Steve Jobs

How to test with users: To understand user behaviour, it’s fairly simple.Follow these 7 simple steps, and you will be a pro in understandingusers’ behaviour in no time:

a. Make a list of 3-5 key tasks that users will do regularly using yourproduct. The tasks will be something like making an invoice, resendingan invoice, check if a particular invoice was paid, and sendingreminder for delayed payment. b.Bring real users in your office, one at a time, make them comfortable.c. Show the user the rst screen and ask to complete task 1. Encouragethe user to keep telling you what they are doing.

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d. Wait and closely watch the user do things, don’t answer questionsrelated to usage of product. Once complete, either successfully or withdifficulty, give user task 2.e. After each task, ask questions only about why things were done is acertain way—not about likes and dislikes.

e. Give a small gift to the user at the end. A cup of coffee and somecookies should do.f. Don’t worry about analysis, your mind is already buzzing withseveral ideas to solve the problems!Now you have joined the select rank of people who understand thedark art of Usability Testing (UT), promise me to do this regularly with your product. You can use WebEx for remote users. And you do not need workingprototypes, you can use paper prototypes easily—just keep pushing thenext screen on the current screen.

Analytics PLUS Usability Testing: Analytics is a great way to know where people came from, what they did, and where they left. Analyticsis a starting point to pinpoint possible usage issues.However, analytics is pathetic when you want to understand thereasons for users’ behaviour: why people are coming, why are they doing what they are doing, and why are they leaving or not doingsomething. Usability testing is a lovely tool to understand the why’s of

user behaviour—you anyway are a pro now!

I depend on user feedback: Users call or send emails when they haveissues they can’t reasonably solve. Most users do not bother to sendfeedback at all, they just leave your product. You will never be able tond a huge number of user efficiency or task workarounds with userfeedback.Usability testing gets you closer to users and understand real issues very early. You will solve a huge number of issues before product

release, saving you a lot of headache later.

Wireframes using Keynote or Powerpoint: I have made paperprototypes and I have tested them—users love my product, now can Iuse UX prototyping tools? Yes, this is the time to use all the greatest prototyping tools out there.The key issue in this stage is feedback from several stakeholders—

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Startup Vision

Ripul Kumar

clients, users, subject matter experts, and others. So, choose a toolthat helps in getting great feedback.The tool that gives you maximum value in this stage is either Keynote(on Mac) or PowerPoint. You can detail out your design very well in both tools. The best part is that you can send to several people for

review or project it for review easily, and anyone in your team can dothat.

5 UI questions to ask: Follow the great design principles and keepogling at the greatest visual design out there.Don’t forget to ask these 5 questions in each screen/user interactionfor a really usable product:a. What is the information needed by the user now to complete thistask/sub-task/eld?

b. What can be done to provide the missing information here?c. What is the logical, most likely/probably, next step of the intendeduser?d. How can we help/guide the user go to the next intended step?e. Where is the user now and what will be achieved after completingthis task?

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Documents

UX 101 for Startups