Better Product Managers, and Product Management

“But all you have to do is option-click on that little “pi” symbol in the corner…”

I have a challenge for you.

“By the way, did you know that you could do X with our app?”

1. Write down a list of the coolest features in your application — the most useful, the ones that differentiate you from the competition, the ones with the highest ‘delight’ factor.
2. For the next week, each time you communicate with a customer, pick one of those features and ask that customer if they’re familiar with it.
3. Write down their response.

A lot of them are going to say “no”.

This may because they just started using your product, or because they’re not very tech-savvy, or because that particular feature is not relevant for them.   But more likely, it’s because those features are about as accessible as an Easter Egg:

• Your site doesn’t mention that those features are available
• There’s no inline help explaining why someone should try them
• They require a little workaround in order to use them… which is not explained on your site
• They’re only available to paid subscribers – but neither free nor paid subscribers know this
• They look ’scary’ (because it’s not clear what activating them will do.  Is there a chance it will lose data or undo previous tasks?)
• There are no demos, screenshots, or any other way to preview them

This is bad.

I mean, you built these features already.   You probably had a good hypothesis as to why they’d be useful.  You invested development and design time into implementing them.  But while they’re in “Easter Egg” state, you will not learn from them.

You can’t know if a feature is useful if no one knows it’s there.  And if you kill a feature while it’s in this state, you’re going to draw false conclusions.  Sure, no one complained.  You don’t complain about missing something if you didn’t know it existed.

So, take the challenge.  Figure out what customers don’t know about.  Anything “unknown” that is core to your business — that had better become the next focus of your attention: figuring how, as quickly as possible, to start “un-Easter Egg-ing” those features so both you and your customers benefit.

It’s easy to improve on already-existing products.

I’m going to come right out and say that, because I think we give ourselves too much credit for simply improving upon the status quo. And it’s really not that hard.  If you use a product regularly, it’s not hard to notice the little flaws or omissions that would make it better.

So then we think, great, our product will be better.  We will do all the things that our competitor does well, AND we’ll fix those flaws and add in those missing pieces.

Congratulations, you now have a superior product.  What you do not have: customers beating down your door.

You’ve done the first step: make it better.  But you still have several more steps:  make it even better.  And then, make it even better than that.  And then, when you’re convinced you can’t improve it any more, make it just a tiny bit better still.

There are two reasons why you need to keep improving your product to a point that seems like fanaticism:

Everyone exaggerates.

Your website says “The best way to do X” or “The easiest way to do X”.  Guess what? So does everyone else’s.  Your competitor – the one whose shoddy product inspired you in the first place – makes the exact same claim on their website.

People are fundamentally wired to not change their behaviors.

(I hear the phrase “users hate change” a lot, and I dislike it – it sets up that us vs. them mentality, that “if only our customers were smarter, they’d get it” excuse.  It’s not that your dumb users hate change. It’s that everyone, even smart people who pride themselves on trying new things, default to retreading familiar patterns.    OK, rant over.  Back to the post.)

It takes work to try a new product.

It requires learning (even if the new product is simple).

It requires risk (what if I invest time and then the new product doesn’t work?)

It’s much easier to use the thing you know, even if you the thing you know kind of sucks.   So even if I know, objectively and absolutely, that your product is 20% better than the alternative, I won’t switch.  Even if I’d recoup the lost time within a week, it’s not worth changing my behavior.  If your product is 50% better?  Maybe.  If your product is 200% better?  Now we’re talking.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have two products to make better.  Much, much better.

I started my career as a designer, so I find a particular irony in now being a vocal proponent of scrappy, get-it-done, ‘quick and dirty’ approaches.

But here’s how I reconcile it: “good enough” is not an acceptable end.  It’s a means to an end.  “Good enough” enables the pursuit of excellence.

I don’t know which workflow or messaging or feature is going to strike that perfect satisfaction within the user.  And neither do you.  (And don’t give me that ‘genius design’ argument – you are not Steve Jobs, and neither is anyone else except Steve Jobs.)

They are not the same things.

If I spent more time tweaking and revising, I would be happier.  But odds are, my customers wouldn’t.

So we start with “good enough”, and we watch and we learn.  And that’s how we know where to focus our tweaks or our ‘aw hell, scrap this whole thing and do it over’ attention.  And we do it again, and again, and again.  Good enough never is.. for long.

The Bay Bridge is closed, shutting down the major commute artery for thousands and thousands of people.  Luckily, there are public transit alternatives – the BART trains that run under the bay and the high-speed ferries.

That doesn’t mean people are using them. Judging by local news radio reports and anecdotes I’ve heard the last few days, many people would rather drive 15-30 miles out of their way to take alternate bridges through heavily-congested traffic.

Not surprising.  It’s always hard to change ingrained user behavior.  But the other (fixable) problem is that the public transit agencies in the Bay Area have an atrocious first user experience.  Signage on BART is confusing – after living here for 10 years and taking it regularly, I still have to double-check which line I should take (walking back and forth to find the ONE map in the station that will tell me).   It’s difficult to find a timetable – if you don’t know how to check schedules online, you’re flying pretty blind.

Most people I know who’ve switched from driving to BART love it – the extra time to read, check e-mail, or nap.  The savings on gas, tolls, and car maintenance is a lot more than the price of tickets.  But the initial hurdle to get there is too much for most people.

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