August 20, 2008 at 00:55Facing the user
via AD28
I want to appeal to users! Do you have the impression that sometimes, the Internet is not a tool for you, but you become an Internet tool? What are you - “avatar clicks”? The problem is that it was the “avatar clicks” that became the bargaining chip of the Internet and the main source of economic attractiveness for this industry. The creators of popular sites forget that real people are behind the accounts, and they are the sources of these clicks. And these people have some opinion on the convenience of the site and its usefulness, which sometimes conflicts with the opinion of the creators of the site. With this short note, I want to show how this contradiction is resolved now and how it should be resolved in the future.
Startup movement is gaining momentum in Russia. There are more and more translated materials on the topic of searching for ideas, development, promotion of the project. Unfortunately, there are very few articles that advocate the need for quality work with a startup audience. How should “preventive measures” be built to improve mutual understanding between users and the administration of the resource? I believe that inattention to causal relationships can lead to an error in choosing the tools for solving the problem. Perhaps you should first talk about the essence, and then move on to technology ?!
I think that today, users of many popular resources can be divided into three groups:
1. Naughty children;
2. Underdeveloped adults;
3.
It does not make sense to describe each group. The names speak for themselves.
The main thing here is to think about the fact that the first group is likely to actively influence the opinion of your service among external audiences. The second group is not so active as to intensively interact with external audiences, but they influence the opinion of managers about users of their site. The third group is the same “avatar clicks” for which the Internet exists. It seems that they have no complaints, no requirements, they just click - open accounts, start pages, upload pictures of their cats, start blogs that don't write anything. These are ideal users - they do not know how to write to a support service and they do not affect anything.
If you have misunderstandings with users, then you have three ways to solve these problems:
1. Convince your users (which is possible only if you have communication with users)
2. Change your strategy and adjust it to the wishes and needs of users
3 . Do not give your users to be free-thinking (required one, will require more)
Do not know about you, dear reader, but the third, the most common variant in runet, it seems to me not very marketing.
Often, having offered the market an understandable idea demanded by the widest sections of the Internet population, startup creators forget about technical problems, usability issues, and design is done in haste.
Many recommendations for creating successful Internet businesses are full of tips, such as “identify the problem and find a simple solution”, “understand who your users are”, etc. All these tips are absolutely fair, but is it possible to develop the project only with the intuition of the creator? You came up with a problem, you came up with a solution. We decided for the user what would be convenient for him and what would not. What will attract and what will avert. And all this without a user! Do you know when you want to get to know your user, chat with him, find out what he thinks about your service? When will the outflow of the audience! Then you will start to think, “what is wrong? What else do these avatar clicks need? I already made the perfect service / portal / social network! ” Not. The perfect service will be the one who is open. Who watched you and took into account all your mistakes.
I will not consider in detail the procedural aspects of communication with users of a massive Internet project. I just want to emphasize that each member of the team, especially if the team is large enough, can participate in building the reputation of the service. It is important to be friendly and user-oriented. Not in words but in deeds.
PS. In RuNet it is difficult to find any materials on this topic. Among the many slurred articles, I want to highlight the article by Pavel Konoplitsky “Successful project - a user-oriented project” . I do not agree with some nuances, however, without a doubt, the material is worthy of careful reading and deliberation.
I want to appeal to users! Do you have the impression that sometimes, the Internet is not a tool for you, but you become an Internet tool? What are you - “avatar clicks”? The problem is that it was the “avatar clicks” that became the bargaining chip of the Internet and the main source of economic attractiveness for this industry. The creators of popular sites forget that real people are behind the accounts, and they are the sources of these clicks. And these people have some opinion on the convenience of the site and its usefulness, which sometimes conflicts with the opinion of the creators of the site. With this short note, I want to show how this contradiction is resolved now and how it should be resolved in the future.
Startup movement is gaining momentum in Russia. There are more and more translated materials on the topic of searching for ideas, development, promotion of the project. Unfortunately, there are very few articles that advocate the need for quality work with a startup audience. How should “preventive measures” be built to improve mutual understanding between users and the administration of the resource? I believe that inattention to causal relationships can lead to an error in choosing the tools for solving the problem. Perhaps you should first talk about the essence, and then move on to technology ?!
I think that today, users of many popular resources can be divided into three groups:
1. Naughty children;
2. Underdeveloped adults;
3.
It does not make sense to describe each group. The names speak for themselves.
The main thing here is to think about the fact that the first group is likely to actively influence the opinion of your service among external audiences. The second group is not so active as to intensively interact with external audiences, but they influence the opinion of managers about users of their site. The third group is the same “avatar clicks” for which the Internet exists. It seems that they have no complaints, no requirements, they just click - open accounts, start pages, upload pictures of their cats, start blogs that don't write anything. These are ideal users - they do not know how to write to a support service and they do not affect anything.
If you have misunderstandings with users, then you have three ways to solve these problems:
1. Convince your users (which is possible only if you have communication with users)
2. Change your strategy and adjust it to the wishes and needs of users
3 . Do not give your users to be free-thinking (required one, will require more)
Do not know about you, dear reader, but the third, the most common variant in runet, it seems to me not very marketing.
Often, having offered the market an understandable idea demanded by the widest sections of the Internet population, startup creators forget about technical problems, usability issues, and design is done in haste.
Many recommendations for creating successful Internet businesses are full of tips, such as “identify the problem and find a simple solution”, “understand who your users are”, etc. All these tips are absolutely fair, but is it possible to develop the project only with the intuition of the creator? You came up with a problem, you came up with a solution. We decided for the user what would be convenient for him and what would not. What will attract and what will avert. And all this without a user! Do you know when you want to get to know your user, chat with him, find out what he thinks about your service? When will the outflow of the audience! Then you will start to think, “what is wrong? What else do these avatar clicks need? I already made the perfect service / portal / social network! ” Not. The perfect service will be the one who is open. Who watched you and took into account all your mistakes.
I will not consider in detail the procedural aspects of communication with users of a massive Internet project. I just want to emphasize that each member of the team, especially if the team is large enough, can participate in building the reputation of the service. It is important to be friendly and user-oriented. Not in words but in deeds.
PS. In RuNet it is difficult to find any materials on this topic. Among the many slurred articles, I want to highlight the article by Pavel Konoplitsky “Successful project - a user-oriented project” . I do not agree with some nuances, however, without a doubt, the material is worthy of careful reading and deliberation.