product definition
You understand your product, but do you understand your users?
You probably have a very clear idea about what your product is (or will be) and how people will use it. But have you really talked to potential paying customers?
The first people to start using your new product (the "early adopters") can be hugely helpful in defining what the product does, how it will be used in practice and most importantly how a user will value it.
We can help you hear the voices of your early adopters and work out what the implications should be for you. Once your product is established you will have to listen to a wider group of customers and we can help you spot when that is the case as well.
By Chris | February 25, 2010
Why the benefits of innovation are not necessarily enough to overcome the barriers to adoption
Ever get the feeling that you are working in a mental asylum? Of course, I’m not talking about any of my client companies. They are all completely sane and sensible. I’ll skip over the fact that the defining experience of working in one of their offices is being pelted with Nerf gun pellets at regular intervals.
Ten years ago I had the interesting experience of moving from what had been a start-up to a big corporate. Not only was Kodak huge, it had a lot of history, it was based on the other side of the continent and it was an old time manufacturing company that was going down the tube but had yet to face up to the fact. You can still see it struggling with this in recent advertisements in American Cinematographer: “Film No Compromise”. Wake up and smell the coffee Kodak, film was dead 10 years ago.
One of the wackier things I discovered there (and it was a year packed full of wacky stuff) was George Eastman’s devotion to the International Fixed Calendar. In 1926, George wrote about “The Importance of Calendar Reform to the Business World”. In this short article, he explains how the variations in the length of the calendar month cause all sorts of problems with the proper management of a modern business. I’m sure you are aware of this and have frequently stumbled over the 11% difference between the length of March and February or the shocking 17% difference in the number of working days in those months. And, that’s not even mentioning the vexations of a “wandering Easter”.
(more…)
By Chris | February 20, 2010
A review of Bill Buxton’s book
In the late ’80s when I first began contributing to commercial products at Spaceward I came across a book which opened my eyes to the issue of how we interact with products and particularly software products. It was “Readings in Human-Computer Interaction” edited by Baecker and Buxton and changed the way I thought about my products in a fundamental way. Bill Buxton’s latest book has had a similar effect.
Reading “Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design” feels like leafing through a designer’s sketchbook, a sketchbook of a lifetime of contributing to designing high tech products. Ideas come at you from all angles and then drill down into incredible detail before spinning off in another direction.
Bill Buxton has worked at both EuroPARC and Xerox PARC, Silicon Graphics, Alias Wavefront and most recently Microsoft Research. He has been lecturing and writing on the human computer interaction for 30 years.
(more…)
By Chris | January 10, 2010
Effectivus gets to be a grumpy damp squib ‘cos he didn’t get to go to Vegas
This last week the technology press has been agog with 3D TVs, Slates and Google’s Nexus One at CES, and predictions for the next decade. I wasn’t there. I don’t mind too much because Vegas is so unreal that it is easy to get carried away with the marketing hype and miss the big picture. So, to offer a little balance, I’d like to propose some alternative predictions for the next decade.
I think that in a world running out of resources it is time for the technology industry to grow up and shoulder its responsibilities. The planet is running out of food, land, water and energy which is pretty bad. But it also running out of scarce metals and minerals which are required to build our high tech playthings. This is going to be tough because most technology products are bought to replace perfectly serviceable products with only a small margin of additional functionality, and sometimes little, or negative, additional benefits[1].
(more…)
By Chris | November 25, 2009
How often is your use of a product frustrated by some little detail?
By Chris | October 30, 2009
How companies turn their back on gold plated commercial opportunities
All effectivus posts