Iceberg underwater: reconciling business goals and consumer desires

Consider a business product using an example of a block of ice drifting in the ocean. Its underwater part is the idea of ​​the product, its goals and objectives, in fact, what we want and what users will receive, as well as the means by which this happy ending will be possible. A frequent scenario - a business wants to make a pleasant product, consumers, in turn, just dream of using this product, they think of something like this: But for some reason it turns out like this: This happens largely because the business often does not understand what the user really wants, and when he understands, he can’t always give it to him. How to avoid this?

Iceberg

Before you begin designing, you need to answer a few questions, from which the success of our enterprise depends on the correct answers, and also determine KPI.

For example, in the case of a media service (e.g. content project), KPIs may be as follows:

• Conversion increase.
• Increase viewing depth.
• Increase the time spent on the site.
• N users daily.

All this boils down to the task of such services to sell advertising spots on the site at the highest price.

Why are we doing this? The key phrase to answer this question: “ we make a product that ... ”

In the case of a media service, the goals will sound like differentiation from competitors and making a profit from the site.

The solution of the problem

Having determined the task of the product and targets, we proceed, actually to the design. Here we need to build on the limitations of the platform with which to work. For web applications, the platform can be a desktop, mobile device, or tablet. The context of using a web application in all three of these cases is different: if in the case of a desktop application, the “quiet” execution of some functions is implied, then the mobile application is focused on solving immediate tasks, and the context of a tablet computer also implies the execution of momentary tasks, though more complicated than with using a mobile device.

You also need to take into account the factor of the target audience (housewife! = System administrator and they need to submit information in different ways), as well as the limitations of iron and our software capabilities.

We summarize: we are determined with the idea, goals and objectives, as well as our benefit and the benefit of users. Then we apply technical means to this knowledge and get an excellent result.

Example

A case study of our company is a magazine codenamed “Omsk Hipster” (the real name of the project cannot be disclosed due to the NDA), for which we made a website.



We define KPI, in other words, we need:

• Attract more users.
• Keep available.
• Receive advertising revenue.

The tasks were as follows:

• To facilitate entry into the community and its specificity is necessary to attract new users and their “adaptation” in the thematic environment of hipsters (realtors, lawyers, programmers).
• Engage the user in generating content - needed to retain users.
• Attract site visitors to communication and discussion of published materials.

What, in the end, gets the business:

• Advertising platform.
• Expansion of partnerships - you can sell not only advertising in the magazine, but also as a package on the site.
• Support offline directions. Actually, feedback is also valid.

Users, in turn, receive:

• Community - all successful projects have their own audience. An example is Habrahabr and the IT community.
• Unique opportunities for communication.
• Support and advice.
• Recognition.
• The ability to seem better than they really are.

What are the means to achieve these results? Everything is simple.

• We provide users with unique opportunities for communication, content creation and discussion.
• Studying the target audience helps to know her wishes.
• The use of game mechanics also gives a positive result (user rating, publication rating, assignment of "titles" for services on the site, etc.)
• This, of course, is already aerobatics, but sometimes it is possible to achieve an effect called "group experiences" when users manage to be united by one common goal, for which they take some actions (as an example, you can take any crowdsourcing project).

For the successful implementation of the project, it is also necessary to document in detail the process of preparing for it (from research by competitors, the target audience to conversations with customers).

In our case, when designing and creating a site for the magazine, we documented the following points (pictures on the button open in full size): Navigation and screens: Information structure of the site: The final concept of building the interface of the magazine site: Just in case, you can download the schemes in one archive here .

Profit

The implementation of a project using this technology carries a number of positive “side” effects:

• Customer requirements and user desires are taken into account.
• During the interview and documentation, we as designers managed to find a common language with the customer, and they, in turn, better understand their users.
• All project participants got an idea about the final product at the design stage, and the final result for no one became a "pig in a poke" ie the usual uncertainty for web project development was absent.
• Of course, the customer was able to control the development of the product.

The thoughts voiced in this topic formed the basis of the presentation that Dmitry Mikheev from the UIDesign Group presented at the ISDEF 2012 conference .