Dull thoughts in a sharp world.

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/

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.

Okay hypothetical scenario.

I have dozens of social sites that house content and conversations about my company – Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Yelp, etc.

And I hypothetically have the desire to grab all that content to show visitors on my company website.

Does this scenario exist?

So we know that content from peers, or social content, is more powerful than descriptions by marketers. But a common problem seems to be aggregating and controlling our content from around the web.

Though I enjoy entertaining the thought of redesigning your website and tapping into the API’s of dozens of websites, we’ve* developed a simple solution to help collect and present content from various networks.

*And by we’ve I mean TurnSocial.com, and by TurnSocial.com I mean David Kelso.

Eric, you are confusing. What is an example?

So I work in the rental/apartment space, so here is an example of an application:

1) Most apartments have relevant content all over the web.
A WalkScore, YouTube Videos, people talking about them on Twitter, nearby restaurant and bar reviews on Yelp, maybe even a Facebook FanPage?

2) Renters are consuming this content on various networks.
Unfortunately, users just do not use one resource to make a decision, let alone just an apartment website. They go to Yelp to check out the nearby bars, search on twitter for mentions, google the apartment name, etc.

3) A Social Toolbar helps websites engage their users with relevant content.
Instead of static pages, with just bed, bath and price, a toolbar allows users to interact with an apartment’s content that is traditionally fragmented around the web. They can become a fan, read neighborhood reviews, view the WalkScore, see what people are saying on Twitter, etc.

Basically, we power social content on websites.

Icanhazcontentz

Yes, you can. So here is a list of the applications we’re pulling in and some benefits.

• Facebook FanPage – Show your Facebook Steam, get more users
• Twitter – Show users what you’re talking about, get more followers.
• YouTube – Show any videos, promote your video content.
• RentWiki – Show nearby neighborhood reviews, give users a sense of the area.
• Yelp – Show nearby bars and restaurants, give users a sense of the social scene.
• Flickr – Show your picture stream, pimp your pictures.
• MySpace – They still exist? If so, give users some MySpace flavor.
• Outside.in – Show users local news and blogs, gives them insight to the local news.
• WalkScore – Give users a walkability score, display how walkable your area is.

Not awesome, but almost there.

We need feedback on how to get more awesome. Any suggestions for apps, bugs, improvements, new uses, partnerships, we want it all. feedback@turnsocial.com.

Check it out at TurnSocial.com and enjoy.

We’ve organized a solid panel for SXSWi this year centered around the idea of Designing Products for Real People. We as in Rob Spiro, founder of Vark.com, Rahmin Sarabi, founder of unclasses.com, and Amit Gupta, founder of Photojojo.com. Here is the description:

There is more to building a product than iterating as quickly as possible. Behind each metric is a human, and it’s critical to speak to these humans beyond the numbers. We’ll explore both sides of the coin and share best practices from each of our respective (and varying) experiences.

There are obviously two philosophies of thought in building product.  One is to rely on data and the other to connect with your users.  In the panel, we’ll talk about how each panelist has been successful in building a product, service, and community and the methodology behind each experience.  Last, we’ll attempt to provide some concrete examples, strategy for implementation, and personal insight in how to designing product.

Last, and I hate self-promoting, we need votes to get this panel to happen.  Vote here if you have an extra 27 seconds.

http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/3193

Thanks and we’ll see you all at SXSWi.

Recollecting the best sessions at Web 2.0 conference, Eric Ries’ session on the lean startup was one of them.  If you haven’t seen it, here it is for your viewing enjoyment.

NAA welcomes several of social media’s best minds to discuss how this marketing trend applies to customer service and retention at a Thought Leaders session at the 2009 NAA Education Conference & Exposition on June 27 in Las Vegas.
By Eric Wu

All the current talk is about social media – how Twitter is taking over e-mail, how Facebook has more users than most countries have citizens, and how engineered virality can replace a marketing budget. With all the chatter, one might think that social media should be a substitute for advertising, a reason to eliminate a company’s marketing staff, and even cure cancer.

All too often, abstract concepts in social media marketing and communication are not concretely defined or measured. The result is the perception of a far-fetched land of geeks getting together and somehow magically altering business operations, marketing strategies and branding.

On June 27, 2009, at the NAA Education Conference & Exposition in Las Vegas, the “Thought Leaders in Social Media” panel aims to provide some experiences and relevant insight into how to use the social web. As a precursor, let’s introduce the panel and take a look at how these individuals have applied social media strategies to increase brand recognition, retention and revenue.

Panelist #1 – Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com

Tony Hsieh has grown Zappos.com from $1.6 million in 2000 to $840 million in 2007, a measly 525,000 percent increase.

How was Tony able to change a company from a little over $1 million in revenue to almost $1 billion in revenue?

If you ask Tony, he’ll say, “customer support.” For most people, these words act as reminders to answer phone calls and please the customer. And, granted, Zappos does both of those brilliantly. However, Zappos has consistently adopted social media as part of its customer support strategy to engage and listen to customers.

“We actually take a lot of the money that we normally would have spent on paid advertising and put it back into customer experience,” says Tony. “We’ve always stuck with customer service, even when it was not a sexy thing to do.”

Zappos shortens the engagement loop with the entire organization by being very active on Twitter. Tony has more than 350,000 followers, and more than 400 of his employees are using Twitter.

For Tony, growing the business has not just been about answering phone calls, but about building a brand around the principles of engagement, creativity and a laser focus on fulfilling customer needs. These initiatives have resulted in 7.4 million total customers, 75 percent of purchases coming from returning customers and repeat customers ordering more than 2.5 times every 12 months. Talk about retention.

Panelist #2 – Jeremiah Owyang, Sr. Analyst at Forrester Research

Jeremiah Owyang is a senior analyst at Forrest Research and a leading expert on social computing, social media and interactive marketing. Jeremiah’s blog was ranked 19th by Advertising Age, he has consulted for large brands such as Hitachi Data Systems, and he is a speaker and educator at many conferences such as Web 2.0 Expo, SXSW and CES.

In a recent study titled, Social Media Playtime Is Over, Jeremiah writes:

The recession has put more pressure on interactive marketers to deliver measurable results. While many marketing budgets are being cinched, more than 50 percent of interactive marketers say they will increase their spending on social marketing. Why? These inexpensive tools can quickly get marketing messages out through interactive discussion and rapid word of mouth and, properly managed, can deliver measurable results. But in this downturn, interactive marketers must move beyond experimentation by making social applications a permanent part of marketing, measuring and demonstrating their value, and integrating them into marketing efforts.

As a part of the study, Jeremiah found that 53 percent of marketers are determined to increase their social media budgets and 42 percent will keep budgets the same, a total of 95 percent of marketers bullish on social media marketing. Even though these budgets are small (three-quarters are less than $100,000), Jeremiah recommends that marketers do not approach social media marketing as an experiment. “Remember, the most expensive cost isn’t the tools, it is the soft costs–strategy, education, process, roles and measurement,” he says.

Jeremiah continues to provide empirical data and demonstrate why social media outlets can be an integral part of marketing and distribution. His message is spot-on; it is not just about being there, but it is about having a strategy and goals for the engagement.

Panelist #3 – Pete Flint, Founder of Trulia.com

Flint founded Trulia.com in 2005 and it now is one of largest and fastest growing real estate Web sites in the United States. Trulia.com has over 5 million unique visitors a month and has raised more than $33 million in funding.

Trulia has been able to bridge the gap between buyers and real estate professionals by building a community called Trulia Voices. Some stats include:

• Visits to Trulia Voices increased 146 percent year over year
• The volume of question and answer activity in Trulia Voices Q&A increased 114 percent year over year
• Real estate professionals’ answer volume increased 96 percent year over year
• Consumer questions increased 181 percent year over year

How has Trulia engaged both millions of home buyers and hundreds of thousands real estate agents?

Again, the answer seems to be centered on the engagement of the customer. Heather Fernandez, Vice President of Marketing of Trulia, says, “Consumers are looking for guidance and education and are relying on our pool of more than 200,000 real estate professionals for advice and insight.”

With multifamily housing traditionally closely tied to the real estate sector, Trulia is a relevant example of how user-generated content can change the flow of communication to consumers.

Moderator – Eric Wu, Co-Founder of RentWiki.com

I’m a 26-year-old entrepreneur and co-founder of RentWiki.com, a socially-driven rental search that connects renters with peer advice. I’ve spoken at conferences such as NMHC Technology, AIM Conference and the Harvard Business School Entrepreneurship Conference. In 2006, I was named one of BusinessWeek’s Top 25 Entrepreneurs Under 25.

Conclusion
Having a Twitter account, a Facebook fan page and a viral YouTube video will not cure cancer, but they can and will affect your bottom line. The underlying message is not about usage or presence. It is about having a consistent strategy to engage consumers, listen to customers and focus on their needs. As Jeremiah puts it, “Fish where the fish are.”

Eric Wu is Co-Founder of Rentwiki.com. He can be reached at eric@rentwiki.com or 415/640-4970. The “Thought Leaders on Social Media” session will be presented 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Saturday, June 27 in the Mandalay Bay’s Lagoon Ballroom as part of the 2009 NAA Education Conference & Exposition.

I participated in StartupWeekend this past weekend, which is a three day event.

Here’s the basics:

Day 1: Pitch ideas/form a team

Day 2:  Wireframes, product road map

Day 2.5: Coding!  2.5 because it happens late at night.

Day 3: More coding!

Day 3 at 7 PM: Launch

With the goal in mind to launch a product (from inception of idea to working beta) in 50 hours, the work environment can get pretty intense. But that isn’t the point of StartupWeekend.  Both Tyler Willis and Andrew Hyde prefaced that the first goal of StartupWeekend is about building a community, not a product.  I didn’t realize this till Day 3 at 7 pm.  Here my recollection of the events.

Day 1: Jesus, you think you can finish that in 8 hours?

I arrived to the Microsoft offices around 7 pm, hungry and a bit weary from all the drinking events from Web 2.0.  However, the energy of the crowd was incredible.  The chatter was high, brainstorming had already begun, familiar faces were in the crowd, and the usual suspects were up to their old tricks (You know I’m talking about you Larry).

5 venture capital firms (including Dave McClure) gave their quick 1,2,3 of what they thought a great pitch entailed, and open mic night began.  Random entrepreneurs stood up and gave a 30 second pitch of an idea.

After the pitches, it was much like a typical unconference, with self-organizing groups forming around an idea or problem.  I wondered around for a while, talking to pretty much every group.  Nothing at this point resonated with me.  As a generalist/designer, I had some strange requirements:

1)  I inherently understood the problem.

2)  We had a clear solution/differentiator.  (You only have 50 hours, vetting time limited).

3)  It was launchable by Sunday at 7 pm.

Putting my hindsight glasses on, I should have added:

1)  Really fun, easy going team

2)  Small group

A smart fellow (yes, I used the word fellow) name of Matt walked up and pitched me on the idea of a URL shortening analytics company.  Though I had no experience outside of using Bit.ly for Twitter, I sensed he was passionate about the problem and we chatted.  I floated around for another hour or so, met with some other great people, and ended up reconnect with Matt’s group.  We decided to set the analytics for Bit.ly idea as starting point.

After getting home around 1:30 am, I drunkenly did some due diligence on other url shorteners with analytics.  Of course simply Googling URL analytics returned cli.gs, the exact idea.  I sent out a couple of emails, one with the following text:

Day 2:  What the hell are you talking about?

Arrived around 9:30 am, immediate went into a conference room and vetted the multiple links idea for the next 3 hours.  At 1 pm, we had the below board with all of our input and ideas mapped out.

All the team members had great insight, and for that matter, backgrounds that were relevant to the project.  Each personal contributed equally to the idea.  That may have been some of the problem… we were getting into feature creep.  Typical of most startups, but I didn’t realize that it happens to all.  Luckily, we were fairly proficient at prioritizing the list, we divided tasks, and got to coding/designing.

Lesson 1: Don’t get into feature creep.  (Esp. if you only have 28 hours)

After a couple iteration of wireframes, our team got together and ended up with this mockup.

We still needed decide on a name.  Options were, poo.ph, ree.ph, dwar.ph, and hubb.it.  I wanted one of the first three, and I was adamant.  At first, I thought poo.ph was God’s gift to URL’s.  Then, changed my mind to dwar.ph. In the end, we choose hubb.it, Which was a great decision, and I really like that name.  I should have trusted their judgement on the name.

Lesson 2:  You have to trust your partners.

Day 3: Holy shit!  We only have 3 hours left?

Day 3 came fast, with a wide variety of items to still be completed on our list.

We basically just worked from the time we got there till 7 pm, either coding, designing, or creating the powerpoint.  A couple of disagreements here and there, but overall was a great day.   Our three presenters completed rocked it and I think the problem we were trying to solve resonated with the crowd.  Dave McClure even twittered about it (Okay, fine, he twittered about all the presentations).

The struggles of a startup are compounded into hours as oppose to months, so disputes will always arise.  We argued about the design, features, and even the slides in the presentation.  In the end, none of that mattered.  We felt a part of a team that was able to accomplish so much in so little time.  We felt a part of the startupweekend culture that created such high energy and smart people collaborating around a single goal.  We felt a part of a larger community of startup entrepreneurs, experiencing the same difficulties, pains, and passions.

I should have listened to the sermons of Tyler and Andrew.  And they were spot-on.  In the end, it was all about the relationships and community that was built. (Oh, and Hubb.me is for sale for $1 million)

Thanks to my team for being such a great group to work with!

Good friend of mine, Rahmin Sarabi, is launching a new startup, unclasses.com, this Tuesday. What is unclasses?

According to his blog, “Unclasses.com is a site to connect people who want to learn about a topic with those in their area who want to teach it. It’s basically a marketplace for matching interest with passion. The actual (un)classes can be whatever you want them to be. People in your area suggest things they want to learn, others join, and someone volunteers to teach. It’s that simple.”

So what? Startups launch all the time, most suck, and most cannot create/ride the necessary momentum to reach critical mass. Well let’s take a close look at three reasons why I’m excited.

3) ↑ Unemployment = ↑ Demand for more income + ↑ Need for new skills

Rising unemployment is forcing employees to seek additional skill sets and additional revenue opportunities.  I have no skills, so I won’t be teaching much, but think about all the skilled designers, engineers, or musicians who would love to teach.

2)  Part-time classes at accredited universities are expensive

30 days of instruction at UCSF costs over $1000.  The piece of paper stating you have a degree in “blank” has become less meaningful.  Would I have rather taken marketing 101 from a talented peer here in SF for $50 than from my professor for $2500?  Yes.

1)  Learning is fun.

Laugh it up.  But think back to ancient times when we were all in college and learning was a very social activity.  We met some of our best friends over a 25 lb text book.  Casual classes provides for the same opportunity to interact with peers with like interests.  The first unclass kegger is at my place.

I get pitched startup ideas all the time, but I am a believer.  I love the idea of self-organizing classes around passionate students and teachers.  Rahmin has great vision, and has recruited some smart partners.  Sign up if you’re interested in teaching or learning or shoot Rahmin some feedback at rsarabi@gmail.com.