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 | August 23, 2010
Three types of serendipity: how do these apply to product discoveries as opposed to scientific ones?
Malcolm Gladwell entertained a diverse audience at the Oxford Playhouse recently with a 90 minute talk about serendipity in cancer drug discoveries. As usual his stories were engaging, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, always entertaining. My 17-year-old son was just as engaged by him as I was, which is a pretty big compliment. Some parts of it are in this New Yorker article.
He described a division of serendipity achievements into three levels.
(more…)
Is there an industry the iPad could wipe out at a (touch sensitive) stroke?
The gushing praise for the iPad is now turning into concrete numbers as this last week analysts have been clambering over each other to predict that Apple will ship.
Piper Jaffray & Co. analyst Gene Munster originally expected iPad sales of 2.8 million in 2010. Then Morgan Stanley upped the ante to 6 million, before their analysts Katy Huberty and Mathew Schneider reported that iPad suppliers are forecasting 8 million to 10 million iPad shipments in calendar year 2010, double the previous estimate of 5 million.
I know nothing of this. As a consumer I have felt the need for some years for a handy internet browser that would always be on and could be used anywhere in the house. There is the Ocado order to be completed in the kitchen, whilst checking the contents of the fridge. Then there is follow up research to settle arguments over dinner and digging into schedules and program details the few times we actually sit down and watch the television.
Is the iPad the device to do this? I don’t know, but I do know that $699 seems a bit steep for the whatever additional benefit it might have over my $300 netbook, which by the way, supports Flash.
But I can see one way in which the iPad could change the world.
(more…)
By Chris | March 19, 2010
The user interface gets very personal
Great story in New Scientist on Skinput (the product of Microsoft Research) which can project an image of buttons onto the skin, and then recognise which button you have pressed using body acoustics.
I’m struggling to imagine the type of muli-user interaction that this could lead to…
By Chris | February 25, 2010
Why the benefits of innovation are not necessarily enough to overcome the barriers to adoption
By Chris | February 20, 2010
A review of Bill Buxton’s book
All effectivus posts