Mind The ProductConference SF 2015

Key topics● Product design approaches

○ Game approach to create „UX world“ ○ Empathetic product design process

● Culture○ Create culture of learning○ Create culture of engaging in debate

● Product development○ How failing/successful companies work

Kathy Sierra (video)

Creating passionate usersbook: Flow: Psychology of optimal experience

Flow state: Take me to another world like a game or play ● Like a concert, sport, culture● Total focus on context, no worries outside zone (tool)

● Every experience has the potential to be transformative● Surprising Examples:

a. Even easy things like Sudoku are transcendentb. IntelliJ Idea: code world which makes me feel like hero

● Humans anthropomorphize everything (Google suggestion: my cat is trying… to kill me)

Cognitive leaks

knowledge you need in head to be able to play/work

ability

chal

leng

e

hero

flow

frustra

ting

boring

Transcendent (transformative) UX

Crafting world extraordinary experience, help them to find it

1. Help them to feel more human2. Help them to find Flow through challenge

Add „world“ to whatever users do with your product. Reduce cognitive leaks

Focus on context, rather than tool (flow lives in the context, cognitive leaks in tool)

Opening vs. leaving experince● opening: immerse into the game

○ user is asking „What can I do in this extraordinary world?“● leaving: will influence the experience

○ Help them get back: Hollywood serials: taking you back to last context

Conversation mode: ● different behavior within the conversation (forgiving) than right after● Conversational language causes people to pay more attention

We can never make perfect product: admit it and tell them● FEE/FEF instead of FAQ: Frequently Experienced Emotions/Feelings● User is not ideal persona from a great marketing image (happy father etc.)● WTF button: I’m really freaking out. ● 75 % of Amazon customers used Mayday button

Jon Kolko (video)

Where do the great products come fromdesign strategy: VP of DG @ Blackboard, Thinktiv, Frog Design

Book: Well-Designed: How to Use Empathy to Create Products People Love, bit.ly/welldesigned

Contextual/Behavioral researchSynthesis & SensemakingBehavioral insightsValue proposition (promise) Feature definitionLaunch & Usage metricsIteration & ExpansionCommunication strategyCommunity feedback

Empathetic product development

Product/Market Fit

Behavior insights

e. g. Uber strikes

product is made by

expected value identity

social precedence

broad tech/political infrastructure

e. g. Google Glass

● Behavioral research:○ Observe what people do rather than what they say (with curiosity) to understand their

needs○ Transcribe full sessions to embed participants collective voice into our heads○ Distribute transcriptions into individual utterances on post its to be able sorting them

● Synthesis: ○ Synthesize them into meaningful insights○ Group and summarize them by statements○ Provoke introspection by why questions and try to answer○ Create series of provocative insight statements about human behavior to arrive at the

scaffold of new product/service/ideai. e. g. Students think they have an idea of what employers want in a candidate, but they are often wrongii. or Recruiters make snap judgments, directly impacting a candidate’s chances of success.

● Product development:○ Merge and compare insights, narrow-in on a what-if opportunity to arrive at emotionally

charged value promise○ Create hero flows that help users become happy or content

Empathetic product design process to create products that users will love rather than just use: (method manifest, example)

Great product manager:1. Ability to tell stories about optimistic future2. Ability to make sense of signals from people and

market3. Passion for listening people (be interested, not interesting)4. Curiosity about other disciplines5. Be affable (moderator)

Tom Chi (video)

Experience Lead, Google X (glasses, car)

1) Create a culture of learning2) Stay in the medium3) Optimize loop length

Culture of right&wrong => Diminishing progressCulture of learning => Additive progress

Track and measure key learnings● Key learning is embodied or observed experience that materially changes

your path forward● What did you learn by success/failure: both increases understanding● Success without learning has limited value

1) Create Culture of learning

Guesses aka „conjectures“ are opinions about what will work without yet having an actual experience● Conjectures => Experiments ● Actuals => Decisions

Google Glass: 150 prototypes / 10 weeks => key learningse. g. projected laser keyboard points to eyes of peer if you turn head to achieve eye contact

1) Create Culture of learning

2) Stay in medium (as artists)

What if artist would has to go to meetings/review with every brush stroke?Minimize meetings/reviews.

What is product builder’s medium? Human behavior in the Real WorldProduct Management Medium is uncertainty. Through the process of wrangling uncertainty something beautiful comes out.

2) Stay in medium (as artists)

Revision Speed index: 5/h = fast, 1/w slowMall prototyping to get feedback● demographic segregation by particular shops ● team of 2 guys have 40 % chance ● guy+girl: 55 %● 2 girls: 70 % success rate

Innovation grows from insight/adaptabilityStart out any new process with design for adaptability

1. Adaptability => Answers2. Scalability => Do it bigSeparating these two will allow you to get further

3) Optimize loop length

3) Optimize loop lengthSearch for Magic moments = Eyes Light Up moment= why product matters to people, not youAdd features that add to and amplify this magic moments

Magic moments of Uber:1) car appears on single click2) leaving without payment

Rochelle King (video)

VP dg UX at Spotify

Encourage conflicts (don’t focus on winning but learning)

● agitating creative process with conflict can lead to some rich discussions● but is (exhausting) conflict needed (worthy)? Express goals!● look for patterns in conflict to step back and get larger picture

Embrace debate● argue against what you believe at● get enemy feedback on early ideas before stakes are high and to foster

relationshipMake sure temple is worth getting, that it’s worthwhile to cross the river, and it’s worth going to battle for.

Create culture of engaging in debate

MetricsBehind every data is person, and data allows you to have a conversation with that person

Make sure metrics are aligned with goals: Spotify: ● Engagement DAU/MAU? ● Spotify: are people listening?

design quality issues document on releases to manage frustration

Ryan Singer, PM Basecamp (video)

Basecamp = password protected blog for clients

Orthogonal product parts can move independently (as opposed to coupled)

Map them focusing: time & affordance● capability is pouring of water, affordance is handle of cup

You need domain expert or need to be oneThis allows you to call things done.

Linda Rising (video)

ObserveConvinced by good story, not scienceDecision makers want action, not investigationIs agile placebo?

Josh Brewer (video)

As product people we are responsible for the ramifications of the decisions we make. Behaviours that drive your engagement numbers potentially have a disastrous effect on us as humans - not making the world a better place.

If you chase two rabbits you will lose them both. Russian proverb

Saying no:● Articulate problem● Find common ground in goals● Consider alternative solution

Mina Radhakrishnan (video)

Marty Cagan (video, narrative)

Silicon Valley Product Group, eBay, AOL, HP, Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love, cagan@

Typical product development:1. Ideas2. Biz case3. Roadmap4. Requirements5. Design6. Build (agile:)7. Tests8. Deploy

How failing companies work:1. Ideas: missing sources (data, engineering…)

2. Biz case huge fallacy: you can’t know how much money you are going to take from idea

3. Roadmap Half will not bring value, rest needs iteration. >Vision over details!

4. Requirements gathering reqs is role of project manager, not product; >Prototypes over req docs

5. Design when lots of (wrong) decisions has already been made

6. Build (agile:) late dev involvement => lost context, don’t understand/believe, late fdb on complexity, don’t know what is possible

7. Tests8. Deploy Output instead of outcome = Results!

Customer validation too late! Incredibly ineffective. Count opportunity cost of all of that!

= Mercenary process: Where is agile?

How successful companies work:Define vision and OKRs instead of roadmap. (problems to solve, not solutions)

Continuous discovery and delivery 20 iterations/week!

Ideas

MVP tests Discovery

Delivery valuableusable

feasibleethical

Product/Market fit!

vision and OKRs

MVP is just a test, not product

Time to money instead of time to marketBe stubborn on your vision but flexible on your details. Jeff Bezos

Successful companies adopting agile process

Google, Facebook, Amazon, Spotify, Netflix, Etsy, Workiva

Companies which did the successful transformation towards this agile process:In Kaspersky lab, the successful transformation was lead by Ilia Kuzneetsov

● Check the videos for more● What we can apply to GoodData?

Interesting products

IntercomProgress Data Direct

IntercomObserve

● See what customers do in the product: analyticsAcquire

● Talk to visitors on website to help them become customersLearn

● Get quality product feedback from the right customersEngate

● Guide signups to become active customers● Announcing new features

In-app support● Streamline support for your team and customers (Zendesk integration)● Behaviorally triggered chat and support while the problem appears

david.bell@...

Progress DataDirectOne connector to Progress to all their data sources?

Selected data sources compatible: ● Hadoop, MongoDB, Cassandra...● Relational DBs...● SF, Marketo, GA, Azure…● EDI/XML/TEXT● DWHS: Redshift, Teradata…● OpenAccess SDK for custom sources