The Productologist

On my way back from a trade show, I spied an article in the airline magazine about how companies are starting to use the “novel” technique of Ethnography to understand how customers really use their products or to test out prototypes in real-world situations (this seems to be a hot topic, because after seeing the article in the airline mag, I also found a recent post about it at Requirements Defined, a blog from the folks at Seilevel and Experientia).

The article starts off with an example of how kitchen tool company OXO International tested a new design for a measuring cup (notably, OXO, a company with a history of embracing great product design, wasn’t sure there was a need for a redesign of the time-tested kitchen tool, but when they started asking others about problems with the current design, they discovered that the existing design was not as robust as they had originally thought). Once they uncovered some of the challenges that users had with the traditional measuring cup, they moved forward with taking their new design out into the field. What they found was a new product design challenge that they could solve.

Now for those of you are not familiar with Ethnography, it is the practice of observing all aspects of a culture from within the culture, rather than as an external observer. The key is observing without directing the outcome. It’s far to easy to steer the user in a particular direction or provide feedback that they wouldn’t get if you weren’t observing them.

Ethnography is traditionally associated with the study of indigenous populations around the globe. It is used to gain insight on their traditions, behaviors and social mores without introducing the influences of the outside world. Anthropologist Napleon Chagnon used it to gain a unique view into the previously undocumented Y?nomamö tribes in South America, although he went beyond the more standard practices of Ethnography by joining the Y?nomamö tribe as a member and fully immersing himself in their culture, which was both enlightening and highly controversial.

Businesses, especially those with consumer products, have started borrowing techniques from Ethnography to help them validate product ideas or design changes. While they are not going to the lengths that an anthropologist would when documenting a culture, many are taking their products out of the lab or the controlled demo environment to let users try out the products in their own homes or workplaces. The problem I have with this “new” model of testing is that it’s not really that new. It’s just good product design.

Whether you are introducing a brand new product, a new version of an existing one or just looking for ways to make minor enhancements, you better be getting out into the real world with your design BEFORE you start your development. Product Managers need to go beyond just capturing a list of requirements from customer, prospects and internal constituents and then blindly prioritizing them for some future version. In order to create a truly ground-breaking product, Product Managers have to think about what users aren’t telling them, but are still struggling with when using the product.

One of the key discoveries that OXO made when they went out into the field to observe how their existing product was being used was the fact that almost all users added some ingredient to the measuring cup, stopped to view the cup from the side to determine if they needed to add more or remove excess that they had erroneously added. It was a laborious and inefficient way to measure, but no one had reported it as a problem. Users reported issues like the risk of burning their hand if the contents and cup got too hot or breaking the cup if it were dropped on the floor or counter. Only by observing the usage of the measuring cup in the real world was OXO able to uncover this hidden design flaw.

Product Managers need to get out into the field to observe how their products are being used. Don’t wait until a customer complains about something. Find satisfied customers, too. Both happy and frustrated users can teach you something about the product that you may not have considered. The happy ones can show you ways that they use the product that may be outside of its original design. The dissatisfied ones will have no reservations about pointing out where there are deficiencies in the product (this one can be tricky because as the Product Manager, you have to insure that the product does not just address the specific requirements of a select few customers).

Here are some things to do to get more real-world data about your product–

1. Ask your Support (or Sales team) who the most dissatisfied and satisfied customers are.
   Once you have a short list of 5-10, contact those customers to arrange at least a conversation with them about how they are using the product. Preferably, you want to get on site with them to watch them use the product in real-world scenarios, but get the dialogue started.
2. Ask the Sales or SE team to sit in on demos to prospects.
   Product demos are typically designed around the most common use cases. During the demo, listen for variations from the prospects on how they would like to use the product. You’ll gain a great deal of insight on how your product would be used beyond it’s original design.
3. Get into the booth at trade shows.
   While they are not typically very exciting, they give you the chance to hear from a wider pool of potential users than just your customer list or Sales funnel. At the trade show I was just attending, after I gave a brief demo of the product, a few people gave me an feedback on how they would use the product if it did XYZ. In each case, the proposed usage was not one I would have considered. It had obvious appeal to that one prospect, but it got me thinking about how to make the proposal appeal more broadly to other users, too.
4. Look for parallel capabilities in unrelated products.
   While this is not truly ethnographic, there are many product designs that can be easily transferred from one product to another, even if they are not related. Do you have a favorite feature in a product that you use? Could that feature be used in your product to address a similar issues or improve usability? If it’s a good feature or concept, you can bet that the original designer already vetted it with a wide range of users. My manager is especially fond of adding features and designs that are similar to the ones in Apple’s iTunes application into our product. I personally fear the “Apple-ization” of all software, but I have to admit that they have a flair for making complex tasks both simple and visually appealing and there are definite benefits to using a common design metaphor.
5. Prototype and then show it to as many people as possible.
   Take prototypes to the user so that they can provide feedback. Many companies wait until development is done to do this, but you will have much greater success if you can determine if the product addresses real-world issues early in the release cycle rather than at the end.

Users can tell you a lot about your product. Some of what they tell you will already be known, but I’ll bet that when you start letting them tell you (or even better, show you) how they use or plan to use your product in the real-world instead of the sales cycle, you will start to see things in a new light. It worked for OXO. Their re-designed measuring cup was one of their top 10 best selling products the year that it was introduced and continues to sell over 1 million units a year.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 2:19 pm PT and is filed under Best Practices, Engineering, Processes, Sales/SE, Usability.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.