Want a Successful Product? Know your Customers.

(Image Source Credit: https://www.cmo.com.au/article/621370/report-what-loyalty-really-means-your-customers/)

Who are Your Customers?

No really, who are they? Write them down. Every person that touches or interacts with this “product” or
“problem solving device”, both internal and external, is a customer. You have more customers then you think. I’m talking manufacturing technicians, sales people, delivery men and women, the end user, and the repair technician. They are all your customers. You will have to show preference to one of their needs over the other (there’s always tradeoffs) but it’s important to identify all of your customers in order to consider what matters to each of them.

What are your customers wants? What drives them? The manufacturing technician wants the product to be easy to assemble. The delivery guy wants the product to be light and the shipping box to have handles so he doesn’t break his back. The user wants the widget to solve the problem they bought it for quickly and easily without costing a fortune. This list goes on and on but a user’s needs list is certainly worth generating.

What are the User Needs?

Each one of your customers are going to have needs. Accurately identifying these needs and satisfying them is the single biggest thing that will make or break your product’s success. The user needs of a product should be the foundation to your product development process and will be your indicators of success when it’s all said and done. If you put the time in early to understand your customers and to truly capture their needs, then you can be confident that you’re going to have a product that sells!

Finding out what the user needs isn’t as straight forward as just asking them. Sometimes people don’t know what they really need. Sure, they can tell you what they want but too often this is only based off of what they can think about in the moment. Steve Jobs has a famous quote, he said “It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” True user needs won’t just come from a conversation with your customer, you get them from observation, interaction, mock-ups, concept sketches, and deep discussion.

An Example Where User Needs Weren’t Considered.

Ever really looked at a Microwave? I swear every time I have to use a microwave in someone else’s house or a new place it takes me a minute or two to figure out how to use it properly. There’s so many buttons!

(Image source credit: https://www.digitaltrends.com/microwave-reviews/sharp-r-830bs-review/)

Let’s think for a second, what are microwaves mostly used for? I’d be willing to bet that 90% of the use-cases for microwaves include quickly heating up left overs or defrosting something. I think I’ve only pressed 4 buttons on my microwave. When I heat up left overs I’m only in need of 3 minutes of microwaving maximum before I’m taking out my food. That’s me pressing the 3 and Start button – 2 buttons. If the designers of these appliances had spent a little more time to think about their users, I would bet you that the user interface of a microwave would be substantially different and maybe have more useful features (they could probably save some money in eliminating other features too!).

Satisfying the Customer’s Needs!

Once you find out what your customer really needs your 80% there, the rest is all implementation. You are set up for success because all your efforts will focus on building a product around fixing your customers problems and satisfying their needs. Your product’s user needs will stand as the 10 commandments for the rest of this process. At the end, you can evaluate your product by assessing how well it meets the established user needs. This happens all the time in the industry; it’s called Design Validation and is a key indicator of a products success. If you spend the time up front and truly understand your customer and his or her problems you won’t be left asking yourself “Did we build the right product?” You’ll know you built the right product and you’ll know it will sell!