PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT INSIGHTS CONFERENCE 9 | 12
Matthew Smith, Shutterstock
Innovation & New Products at a Large Company
#productnyc
INNOVATION & NEW PRODUCTS
AT A LARGER COMPANY
MATT SMITH@mjordonsmith
AKA
“BEYOND CORE”
BUT...
THEN SOMETHING HAPPENS
When you get here, most companies loose the ability to innovate
SO WHAT DO YOU DO?
10 teams, focused on different areas of the business
TodayExecution
CORE BUSINESS
SearchEvaluatePurchase
Eyeballs & Engagement
Content &Search Tools
Purchase
But, we made a key decision to think beyond today,
& think about new products
CORE
New Products
We had to be very strategic, & step back from where we were
We thought about user behavior & environmental behavior in general
Let’s Understand General Behaviors First
Context
Actions
Location
Goals
Quick Access
Check My Stuff
Everywhere
Informative
Leisure
Search & Explore
Home Access
Discovery
Task Oriented
Advanced Search
Work Access
Execution
Then we thought about this translates to us
Goals Informative Discovery Execution
Updates&
Inspiration
Context Quick Access Leisure Task Oriented
Inspiration&
Search
Search&
Download
Primary &Secondary
Actions
How Does This Translate To Us Today
But more importantly, we spoke to people - over 200 users since January
We learned - A LOT
We learned that users workflows start before they come to us, and continue
on after they come to us
We applied our learnings
The FutureExecution
CORE BUSINESS
SearchEvaluate
Download
PRE CORE POST CORE
Inspiration Collaboration
Curated ContentKey InfluencersDiscovery Paths
Give FeedbackSharing w/ Friends
Eyeballs & Engagement
Content &Search Tools
Purchase
Communication
THEN WE MOVED FORWARD
We compete from within
If you were to quit today, knowing everything you know, and
without any of the baggage, what would you do?
We took our learnings from those 200+ interviews with customers & prototyped & brought them back to people for feedback
Some things worked great
Some things were very rough
We went HTML5 & it was a rough development effort. Users liked it, but it took too long & lacked all that we wanted
We continue to have lots in the pipeline & continue to lead with user research
KEY TAKEAWAYS
You have to make a commitment as a company to look at things from a new
perspective
You have to be willing to start with ideas & user discovery over
spreadsheets & potential revenue
You have to over communicate the importance of an idea & how it benefits the
business effectively
Ultimately, you have to have a strong business vision that lends itself to the notion of
“beyond core”