42% of startups fail because they do not target a real market need (CB Insight).

Are you an entrepreneur? Designer? Product manager? Do you want to design a product? Your responsibility is to include your users in the design of your solution.

This is why I invite you to discover the methods we use at BAM to ensure that our products are adopted by our users.

Understand your users before defining your product

“Meet the users? It takes time and we are already sure of our choices! ” A phrase that I often hear and that, from experience, announces a certain failure.

Questioning your beliefs is not a simple thing, but it is essential when defining your product.

Test your assumptions and discover opportunities

The need is only a hypothesis until it has been validated or invalidated by your users. Here are the methods we use to test our assumptions and discover opportunities.

Qualitative interviews

These are individual interviews conducted with several users. The objective of a qualitative interview is first of all to understand:

• the current user journey, step by step: how is it doing today without your solution?
• the emotions felt by your user at each stage of their journey: what are their frustrations, their motivations? What does he doubt?

Then to project the user into one or more solution intentions in order to understand:

• Whether the type of solutions proposed could help him in his current journey
• Obstacles that could make the user reticent to this type of solution.
  
  

Field observations

Complementary to qualitative interviews, a field observation consists in physically following a user along their journey.

They allow you to understand your target even more precisely by immersing yourself in its context and to detect environmental factors that may constrain the user in using your solution.

For example, an application intended to be used in a car park must take into account the fact that there may be no network. Or even business software intended to be used in a factory must take into account the fact that protective gloves are mandatory.

Quantify to prioritize the challenges to be addressed

“It's all very nice. We have learned a lot of things that challenge our original beliefs and we have lots of new ideas. But now what do we do? ”

Indeed, learning from interviews and observations can lead to the multiplication of opportunities to be addressed. At that moment, a lot of ideas for solutions emerged. How do you rationalize to focus on what's most valuable?

The quantitative survey

The quantitative survey is a way of quantifying the learning of the previous phase through a survey submitted to as many users as possible.

It makes it possible to determine, thanks to a large panel of answers, the frustrations that concern the greatest number of people and the ideas of solutions most appreciated by your target.

Launching a quantitative survey can be complicated when there is no database of target users at your fingertips. In this case, you can rely on solutions such as Tandemz to recruit a large panel of respondents.

Or get creative! If you're targeting passionate cyclists, join specialized Facebook groups to share your survey. If you are targeting independent general practitioners in rural areas, use your contacts to convince a doctor to circulate the survey in their community.

The prioritization matrix

Although essential, users are obviously not the only factor to take into account when defining and positioning your product on the market.

For each solution idea that we have to meet the needs identified, we assign a score concerning:

• User value: how strong is the frustration addressed and felt by a large number of users? How great is the appetite of users for the proposed solution?
• Business value: to what extent can the opportunity addressed be part of a viable business model? In the company's strategy? How does it differentiate yourself from competitors?
• Complexity: how difficult is the solution to technically design? How complicated can external factors make setting it up?

Iterate on your prototypes before starting development

You have completed the user research phase. You know your users and their preferences like the back of your hand. You defined your product by prioritizing solutions based on user value, business value, and complexity. You designed the first mockups of your product.

“Let's go! What are we waiting for to launch the developments? ” Hop hop hop! Not so fast. It is very important to test your prototypes before developing them.

Validate the adoption of your product

User tests allow you to validate or iterate on the elements essential for the adoption of your product before incurring significant development costs. Here are the things we are looking for during our tests.

The UUsability

We check if our product is understood and easy for users to use. To do this, we first rely on an objective method, which consists in watching our tester use the prototype to detect blocking elements. Then on a subjective method, which consists in asking the user about his feelings about the simplicity of use of the product. Sometimes the tester uses the prototype perfectly but still finds fault with the ease of use of the solution.

The pErtinence

We also check that our solution meets the needs of our tester. Putting a prototype in the hands of users allows them to project themselves concretely into the proposed solution. We dig in with the tester if it includes all the functionalities necessary to solve the problem addressed and how often he intends to use it.

The éGenerated emotions

Finally, we check whether the universe of our product is in sync with our users. Are the graphic and editorial choices relevant? Do they cause a “wow effect”? Does the user feel confident using the product? Is the user's feeling in line with the message we want to send them?

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Choose one or more test formats

Different methodologies exist to test your solution. To be chosen according to the context of your project. Here are a few of them.

The tests qualitative

These are individual interviews conducted with your users. The idea is first to observe them using your prototype in real conditions to detect and understand usability problems. Then follow up with a questionnaire to check the relevance and emotions generated by your solution.

While they may require time, especially in terms of organization, they are very effective because they allow you to directly dig into the insights identified with the testers.

Guerrilla testing

It's about going directly to your users, where they are. In front of a station if you are targeting train passengers, at the end of a soccer match if you are targeting fans of this sport, at the end of a medical school if you are targeting students in this discipline, etc.

Less ideal than a qualitative test because it is difficult to take more than 15 minutes from a stranger, it still allows you to obtain interesting learning by obtaining a large amount of feedback quickly.

It is a very relevant alternative if you are limited in terms of time and budget, and if you have a way to access a place where your target evolves.

The tests Quantitative

This is a non-moderated test format, i.e. the test will be carried out independently by the user via a specialized platform such as Testapic, Ferpection or Maze.

These platforms offer services to help you recruit a relevant panel of testers, define the content of your test and analyze the results.

Very interesting because quantitative tests allow you to obtain insights based on a large number of testers, they do not allow you to discuss with them to dig into the “why” and require a certain budget.

Stay in touch with your users to improve the performance of your product

There you are. You developed your solution after iterating on your prototypes to adjust your solution based on the insights identified during the tests. How do you create a virtuous circle to continuously improve your product?

Track performance to identify areas for improvement

The first step is to put in place ways to monitor the performance of your solution.

First of all, you can define the KPIs that allow you to objectively measure whether your product meets the needs you have identified. For example, if one of the key preferences of your users is to be able to book a vehicle in less than 10 minutes, you should set up tracking to calculate the average time to make a reservation on your solution.

You can also set up channels so that your users can give you feedback on your product directly. For example, the Net Promoter Score is a question asked to users of a service to gauge their overall satisfaction: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely is it that you would recommend our solution to a friend? ”. Accompanied by a free field, it allows users of the service to justify their rating.

The monitoring of KPIs and consolidated feedback will thus give you a clear idea of the elements to improve on your product.

Dig out areas for improvement to define solutions

The second step is to react when you detect areas for improvement in your solution.

First, you can use analytical tools like Content Square, Hotjar or Amplitude to try to analyze what is causing underperformance or negative feedback. In fact, these tools make it possible to analyze the behavior of users on your product: mapping routes, click rates, viewing user sessions, etc.

However, they remain factual and do not always allow for an explanation. In this case, the best solution is to get closer to the users. Use qualitative interviews and field observations to understand the source of the problem. Survey a wide range of users to verify that you have put your finger on the real cause. Think of a solution to solve the problem and test a prototype before implementing it on your product.

I would conclude this article by saying that the link with your users should not be seen as a short-term relationship that will only be useful to you at the beginning of your business. But rather as a link to maintain over the long term to detect opportunities and improve your solution continuously.