Joe Baz: Do You Know What Your Customers Want?

So you’ve a great product, you’ve spent time and money, working tirelessly to make sure that it’s got all the bells and whistles that you think people will love. But how do you know? Does it really reflect what your customers need or want? Both new and established businesses fall into the same trap, thinking: We have a great product, people are going to love it, and we are going to rake in the dough. The main focus is on product development with minimal contact with customers. But not focusing on customers’ needs and wants can break a business. It’s putting the cart before the horse, and unlike in Field of Dreams, if you build it, they won’t necessarily come.

No Field of Dreams

A prime example of how not focusing on users’ needs can bring down a company is the demise of Devver, a company that made developer coding tools. It started out with great fanfare; however, earlier this year, the company announced that it would be closing its doors after only two years of operation. In a blog post, one of the founders directly attributes the lack of contact with their potential customers as one of the main reasons the company failed. They took the “heads down” approach, working on developing their tools without any input from the people who would potentially be paying for and using them.

User Experience Design Focusing on Customers

In user experience design, at the outset, we know that we have to determine what your customers want. Based on user research, we can then focus on creating compelling and engaging customer experiences that will drive calls to action and ultimately compel people to buy and use your products.

Here are some key steps that should be taken while developing your product, making sure to keep the customer top of mind.

• Persona creation – Break down the various types of users who will be interfacing with the product – not all customers are created equal. Figure out how each type of user will interface with the product.
• Usability testing – Determine if the proposed designs will be intuitive and useful for the customers. Now-a-days, usability can be done cheap and fast.
• Analytics review – Evaluate how your product is doing by examining your web analytic reports and take action on the data by watching your key performance indicators (KPI)

This may sound like common sense, but there are a lot of cases where these simple steps aren’t even considered. As seen by the ruin of Devver, while developing your awesome product is important, it pays dividends to make sure that your potential customers will actually use it. And if you don’t want to go the way of the horse-and-buggy, it’s something that should be at the forefront for every business.

Joe Baz (@joebaz) is the CEO & Founder of Above the Fold, a user experience design company in downtown Boston, which specializes in UI design, usability studies and analytics. 

Photo Credit: ronploof on Flickr