Dull thoughts in a sharp world.

http://kaljundi.com/2010/02/19/upcoming-startup-incubator-deadlines/

If the color of a button makes a significant impact on your business, are you solving real pain?

If users jump through hoops to convert and pay you, then you know you solving a real pain point. Maybe it’s good to put up a bunch of tests with suboptimal conversion funnels to see what users will go through to get your product?

Definitely makes me miss Asia.

a journey through asia from ivan vania on Vimeo.

Solid presentation by Tara Hunt:

Featuritis (feature creep) is a common plague of all startups and depending on stage, can cripple a startup. In trying to determine the core value to the end user, relying on a combination user feedback, introspection, and internal company feedback can lead to complex and convoluted solutions to simple problems.

In an old article by the NewYorker, “Feature Presentation“, the author cites:

In part, feature creep is the product of the so-called internal-audience problem: the people who design and sell products are not the ones who buy and use them, and what engineers and marketers think is important is not necessarily what’s best for consumers. Being technically savvy themselves, engineers love to enhance the capabilities of a product and give users more control and more options, particularly now that, thanks to digitization, lots of added features don’t mean lots of added production costs. The engineers tend not to notice when more options make a product less usable. And marketing and sales departments see each additional feature as a new selling point, and a new way to lure customers. Often, the result is a product like Microsoft Word 2003, which has thirty-one toolbars and more than fifteen hundred commands.

You might think, then, that companies could avoid feature creep by just paying attention to what customers really want. But that’s where the trouble begins, because although consumers find overloaded gadgets unmanageable, they also find them attractive. It turns out that when we look at a new product in a store we tend to think that the more features there are, the better. It’s only once we get the product home and try to use it that we realize the virtues of simplicity. A recent study by a trio of marketing academics—Debora Viana Thompson, Rebecca W. Hamilton, and Roland T. Rust—found that when consumers were given a choice of three models, of varying complexity, of a digital device, more than sixty per cent chose the one with the most features. Then, when the subjects were given the chance to customize their product, choosing from twenty-five features, they behaved like kids in a candy store. (Twenty features was the average.) But, when they were asked to use the digital device, so-called “feature fatigue” set in. They became frustrated with the plethora of options they had created, and ended up happier with a simpler product.

So how do you solicit meaningful feedback from users and identify what is truly important to them?

A common theme seems to be in the distinction between a need and a want.  Though this seems like a simple task to distinguish, as noted above, most users will convey features as a need.

1   A/B paper prototype

Create different wireframes/mockups to test against.  For example, if a user says they want feature x, understand if they want feature x over feature y by providing two sets of wireframes.

2   Guide user to explicitly give both positive and negative feedback

People tend to be either overly positive or overly negative.  Get their viewpoint by asking questions like, “Name 3 things you like and dislike about this.”, and “Tell me three things you would change and keep about this.”

3   Keep user focused

If you’re testing functionality, avoid graphical or presentation feedback.  Avoid pushing peripheral features on the wireframes because those can potentially distract the from focusing on the core you’re attempting to validate.

I also think that if you create pixel perfect mockups for validation, it may be difficult to understand if the user understands/wants/needs the feature or just likes the presentation.  Anycase, looking for more concrete methodology to identify pain/need of users in the wireframe phase.   Drop me a line if you have any thoughts.

Some other really good tips here: http://sixrevisions.com/project-management/eight-tips-on-how-to-manage-feature-creep/

How do you identify opportunities?

According the Steve Blank, McClure, and the many of the mentors/VC/advisors in Silicon Valley, this notion of hitting the ground and asking your customers seems to be the route. Customer development is a huge step in identifying problems as well as opportunities. User-centric design and product seems to be a winning strategy.

But what questions do you ask, how do you phrase questions, how do you conduct usability test, and how do you objectively find opportunities.

If I asked, “would you like to see pictures of nearby bars and restaurants when you searched for a rental?”. 9/10 people would say yes. But if you phrased it, “would you rather see pictures of nearby bars or floor plan information”, the answers would be drastically different. I also like forcing negatives, eg “What are three things you dislike about this idea?”

When doing customer development, seems vital to be able to objectively solicit information from users.

On the other side, many entrepreneurs believe much can be determined by data and research of trends. How many people are searching key terms, how have other startups have launched the feature set successfully, etc.

Personally, I’m a fan of just asking a sampling of your customer base.

“It takes only five users to uncover 80 percent of high-level usability problems” Jakob Nielsen

So elite companies tend to poach when seeking top talent.  This is because the best people are usually not unemployed or surfing craigslist for jobs.

On that note, why do VC’s not poach more?  (Not for employees, but for investments)  Would seem logical that startups seeking investments are less likely to be rockstars than startups that do not need investment.  Again, there is actually a lot of complexity involved and yes, most startups need capital just to get off the ground.  But why not try to reach out to entrepreneurs/startups at a greater clip than just relying on deal flow from inbound pitches.  I know this happens, but it seems more passive.

Since really diving into design and product over the past 12 months, and attempting to consume as much UI/UX content as possible, I’ve come appreciate the dysfunctional relationship between a designer and a developer.   Though not all startups face this challenge, I find it interesting where value and focus is placed within such companies with so few resources.  The current trend seems to place heavy emphasis on usability and front-end functionality.

Accordingly, I like to place front-end work into three buckets, UI/UX, Design, and Code.

1)  UI/UX – Though these two are considered a bit difference, I like to work through wireframes for both in mind.

2)  Design – This is taking the wireframes and creating pixel perfect design.

3)  Code – Implementing pixel perfect design correctly via CSS/HTML/JS, etc.

With steps 0.5, 1.5, and 2.5 containing a feedback loop.  So currently, I’ve been looking for a solid UI/UX designer who can handle at the very least the first two.  However, if finding a team to handle all three is not available, I am beginning to lean on finding an individual who can handle the last two.  Again, it seems that there is the large disconnect during the implementation of a pixel perfect mockup.

In a recent article in ReadWriteWeb titled “Design for Startups“, these two quotes really made sense to me.

Another perspective is Rundle’s contention. “A web application’s overall look and feel plays a very critical role mainly through two main factors: early adopters love beautifully-designed applications and that gets them talking. Secondly, ease of use and quality interface design go hand in hand to attract new customers and users. If the interface is not intuitive then they’ll be frustrated and give up (and tell all their friends.)”  A similar sentiment was Barrett’s opinion. “There are rare cases where an app’s mind-blowing functionality can override any other concerns but otherwise users tend to make a decision about an application’s usefulness to them within the first few moments of using it. Aesthetics play a major part in that decision.”

Noting that many developers are also doing graphic design for their applications, Barrett said, “One of the telling differences between an application design that is handled by a designer and one that is handled more by a development team is spacing. Developers don’t usually think much about how element should sit on a screen together, so you see a lot of items crammed together or unevenly distributed. This is the kind of thing an average user can’t put their finger on, but on a subconscious level, it bothers them and gives them a negative opinion of the application.”

When I’m considering signing up for a service, contributing to a site, or just thinking about clicking a button, I subconsciously make a snap decision stemming from the perception of usability and security.  Unfortunately, since most startups are starting to focus on usability, we as web consumers have been trained to make this decision based on a matter of a few pixels.

The issue is quantifying how effect much lining up a form, correctly placing a button, the color of a header, or messaging has on usability.  And how much increased usability affects our virality factor, in-bound links, SEO, branding, revenue, and sales?

As we enter the next major redesign and feedback loop for RentWiki.com, usability will be a focal point.  The challenge lies in measuring the results of each incremental usability change.