Building the Product Roadmap

I recently talked about creating an effective product roadmap in this Antwak series. 

In one of the earlier posts, I talked about how to make a data-driven product roadmap. Deriving your goals in themes like Acquisition, Conversion, Money/Revenue, Engagement makes things a lot easy for keeping the roadmap data driven. Also, in the previous post, I talked about various brackets in which the features of a software product can be categorized. 

I felt the list of brackets can also help in getting ideas for a comprehensive list of tasks for the roadmap. 

Here's the list of those brackets again with some more details and examples. I'd soon add a link to the template for a product roadmap. (The list is not in any particular order.)

Feature Brackets for a Product Roadmap 

1. Parity Feature

A feature that the competition (if any) already has. The kind of features that you need, to be 'at Par' with them. The kind of features that your prospects will compare and ask questions about when you try to close the sale, especially for SaaS products. In case of consumer products, you wouldn't have loyal users mostly. You can be in good books of consumers as long as you keep providing at least what your competition is providing.  
E.g. Integration with Slack (for a Reporting Software), Price comparison (for e-commerce), Video call (for chatting app), Panic button (in a ride-hailing app) etc.  

2. Expected feature 

A feature that's naturally expected from your product. It's generally the USP, but also, includes conversion and revenue related features. In 2012, importing contact book was a disruptive feature by WhatsApp, as of 2017 importing the contact book is an expected feature for a chat application. 
E.g. Signup/Login, Home Page, Subscribe (for content-based product), Purchase module (for SaaS/E-Commerce)

3. Advanced feature 

A feature that only a power user would love. Usually, a first time user may not get it, or care about it. For someone new to youtube, it doesn't hurt that you can't filter a certain type of videos. But, as a parent and longtime consumer of Kid Video, I strongly feel the need for it. Youtube hasn't heard me yet. [Update: Youtube does have a Youtube kids app, however, a filter would really help so much more]
E.g. Customisation options like Themes, Font Settings, Filters 

4. By-products 

What perhaps 3rd parties are providing on top of your solution. It may also be an unexpected use of your product. Check my last post for more details. 
E.g. Facebook for Business, Google Tez, Youtube-kids (special app for kids) 

5. Unexpected feature 

Unsolicited, clever add-on features that can delight users in certain situations. 
E.g. Panic button in Ola (a cab hailing app), Forgot attachment notification on Gmail. 

6. Repayment feature 

Most of the time you are hacking stuff to get it out of the door. You should plan it such, that all the stuff that you kept for "later", don't get too late. Reducing technical debt, legal debt, doing compliance related stuff. 
E.g. Technical Architecture, Optimising performance, Documentation, creating really useful terms and conditions, Disclaimers, EULA, Security certifications, Government licenses and approvals etc. 

7. Engagement feature 

A cab-hailing app also allows you to store frequently visited places as favorites. An e-commerce website also allows creating a wishlist. These are not the primary use case, nor do they awe the users. They just give a sense of completeness to the product. Engagement is about providing a complete ecosystem for the user to feel connected with the product. Obviously, these features have the potential to hold the users longer, bring them back often. 
E.g. "You may also like", Favorites, Cashback, Leaderboards, Newsletter Subscription 

8. Viral feature 

Will get you more users. More often they are targeted for providing exceptional growth for a limited time. 
E.g. Referral Schemes, Incentive to Add your contact Book etc.   

9. Security feature 

Keeps your product, your users and/or your data safe. Some basic security is always appreciated by the users. Nothing is hack proof but you can ensure that it's not easy for a school kid to put you to shame - at least in the early days.  
E.g. OTP verification, Https, Pattern lock on your phone, Captcha, Re-Login 

10. Instrumentation feature 

Features that help you measure and monitor the growth/health of the product. If you are not measuring you are not improving. 
E.g. Integration with basic Analytics, integration with advanced analytics, integration with   

To understand which feature bucket is more important at which stage (early, growth, maturity etc.) of your product you can have a look at this previous post. This should provide a good reference to make sure your feature list and roadmap is both comprehensive and stresses on the right areas at the right time. 

Thoughts? I'd love to know your thoughts and comments. Please take a moment to write them.  




If you have reached this far you should totally leave a comment about how you liked it and share this post with others.  

Product Prioritisation - More than Impact v/s Effort

I recently had a nice long discussion with a product manager friend working for an e-commerce giant. Among other things we talked about prioritisation and how we do it in our respective organisations. I had some interesting thoughts and I talked to PMs in a dozen startups in India to understand how they are prioritising for their products. I realised that other than the famous impact versus effort analysis, there is an invisible framework we use to determine impact at different stages of product life cycle.

This is how the standard Prioritisation chart looks like:

1. high impact, low effort - slam dunk! obviously, go for low hanging fruits

2. low impact, low effort - I personally love these micro-optimisations. They can quickly add up to become high impact

3. high impact, high effort - the bigger projects. See if you can release them piece meal and turn them into a mix of 1 & 2.

4. low impact, high effort - why would you ever want to do these? Well, sometimes you have spare resources. Also, sometimes these are Parity or Expected features and you need to have them for the sake of completeness.

In my research, though I found more layers of complexity involved in making a decision. Notably, at different stages of product life cycle, the prioritisation is managed very differently. Whatever methods are being followed, almost no one was "consciously" considering the prime responsibility of product management - balancing business, users and tech. It was being done rather instinctively. I also figured that for most products, all their features can be grouped under certain brackets.

I found that if articulated, the framework can act as a very helpful reference while prioritising features for any B2B, or B2C product roadmap or even for doing backlog refinement for sprints. I showed it around and most PMs could relate very well to it.

Here it is. I classified different features into various brackets and I could find 10 of them. I tend to feel this is an exhaustive list of the feature classification, but let me know if you can think of more brackets that can be added. (In no particular order)

1. Parity feature - a feature that the competition (if any) already has 
2. Expected feature - feature that's naturally expected from your product. Also, includes conversion and revenue related features
3. Advanced feature - something only power users would love 
4. By-products - what perhaps 3rd parties are providing on top of your solution. Check my last post for more details.  
5. Unexpected feature- unsolicited, clever add-on that can delight users in certain situations
6. Repayment feature- reducing technical debt, legal debt, compliance related stuff
7. Engagement feature- will hold the users longer, bring them back often
8. Viral feature- will get you more users
9. Security feature- keeps your product/users/data safe 
10. Instrumentation feature - helps you measure and monitor health of product

Eventually, you'd have to put features in the Impact versus Effort chart and assess what to build. Impact estimate should cover who is it going to impact, and how much is it going to impact them. Effort estimates are what the tech team says they are (in person-days or person-months).

Practically, in larger teams with enough resources, the effort estimates are less important. 

Sorry for the digression, i know that's politically incorrect. But, I care less, that's a truth. Effort estimates come in handy only when there are competing features that need to be added and may have similar impact. Also, when resources are low and you have to argue with others and fight for your ideas. It happens mostly in early and growth stage, less frequently in maturity stage.

Now, coming to how at different stages the balancing act assigns different priorities to these feature brackets. Here's how it looks:

Early Stage
(Listed in order of Priority for this stage)

1. Expected feature - This is the core of your solution. You build this first, nothing makes sense until this is ready. 
2. Parity feature - What competition already has. When users come to you, they'd want to compare before they pay. You'd need to tell them you have those features and more.  
3. Viral feature- The referral schemes and social elements and network effects that will push you to growth stage. 
4. Repayment feature- It's important to give it enough weight for a stable, scalable future product
5. Instrumentation feature - This is setting you up for next level. You need to start thinking what you want to measure. What you can measure is what you can improve. 
6. Security feature- A stitch in time saves nine. It makes total sense to keep making security audits. You have less data but this is also the time when those sharp early adopters will try to milk your vulnerabilities the most. Particularly promotions and referral schemes. 
7. Engagement feature - less important at this stage
8. Advanced feature - don't even think about these
9. Unexpected feature- don't even think about these
10. By-products - don't even think about these

Growth Stage
(Listed in order of Priority for this stage)

1. Viral feature- create and fuel your growth engine. (Notice the jump?)
2. Parity feature - This is a necessity at this stage. You can't lose out because of these.  
3. Expected feature - You need to make sure early adopters and the early majority get what they expect, if not more. 
4. Instrumentation feature - the better you measure, the better you grow
5. Repayment feature- don't lose sight of this, it is always important
6. Engagement feature- acquisition may be top priority but if they are not being fed back to the funnel you are losing money. 
7. Security feature- Data is increasing and so is your responsibility
8. Advanced feature - you may start throwing in a feature or two for power users if they are low on effort
9. Unexpected feature- only if they are low on effort
10. By-products - don't even think, unless you see that you need to Pivot. 

Early Maturity Stage
(Listed in order of Priority for this stage)

1. Engagement feature- add more channels for engagement, make users sticky, bring the acquired pool back more often (Notice how this comes from #6 to #1)
2. Viral feature- make sure the incoming stream is steady
3. Unexpected feature- great time to innovate, bring in some fresh thoughts to delight your users
4. Security feature- this is getting critical
5. Repayment feature- stability and scalability are of prime importance
6. Advanced feature - hopefully, now you have more power users to care about
7. Instrumentation feature - measure everything, integrate with third party tools
8. By-products - this goes with better qualitative analysis of your customers and take up side projects for up selling and cross selling to the same consumer base
9. Parity feature - hopefully, you've carved a niche for yourself, but keep an eye on where they are heading
10. Expected feature - hopefully, you've nailed most of it by now so you can stop worrying about it for now

Maturity Stage
(Listed in order of Priority for this stage)

1. Engagement feature- engage more, engage better, time to curb churn 
2. By-products - leverage what you have, before others do
3. Unexpected feature- innovate, disrupt yourself before others do
4. Advanced feature - there may substantial subset of users who care about these
5. Instrumentation feature - the last 4 are only possible when your measurement is intensive and extensive
6. Viral feature- growth is still important
7. Security feature- this is critical. Make sure you have tight security, backups and continuity plans in place
8. Repayment feature- reducing technical debt keeps you stable and scalable
9. Parity feature - you should know your customers better than your competition does, parity is less important than engagement and delight. Never lose your edge
10. Expected feature - revisit your core value proposition, make sure you are honest

Decline Stage
(Listed in order of Priority for this stage)

1. By-products - Your users are moving on, your product should too. See how?
2. Engagement feature- will hold the users longer, milk as much as possible
3. Unexpected feature- unsolicited, clever add-on that can delight users in certain situations
4. Advanced feature - give them what they want 
5. Instrumentation feature - you should have mostly figured this out by now
6. Viral feature- you may try innovating with new channels, geographies, consumer sections if something can bring you back in the stable state. 
7. Security feature - be wary of access permissions, disgruntled employees
8. Repayment feature- make sure technology is not coming in the way
9. Parity feature - not just current competition, check what is disrupting the market
10. Expected feature - revisit your core value proposition

It's fun to see how you can simplify your decision making by articulating things that you instinctively do.

Did you find this useful?

Would love to know your thoughts.
Please comment here or share your ideas with me.
And feel free to share the article if you find it worth.




If you have reached this far you should totally leave a comment about how you liked it and share this post with others.  

Upgrade yourself: Be a By-product manager!

Most PMs I interview for my org, I make it a point to ask them, how do they interact with the customers/end-users. What do they ask in order to assess their own ideas, or identify what user's want. Most of the good ones will answer it around identifying the problem of their users/customers.

Thinking about the problems is VERY important. In fact, it is better than thinking about solutions. But this post is about taking the entire thinking one level up.

What is the by-product of your solution? 

What impact is your solution having on the consumer base. I am sure it is helping them solve a specific problem but what else? Baking soda was originally advertised as a baking agent. Over time, customers started using it as a cleaner and deodorizer. To take another example, Whatsapp was able to help people text, talk, share pics, videos all in one window. But that was the intention. Whatsapp enabled millions of virtual communities to be born and grow. I am part of at least 5 communities related to startups and product management. Maybe I knew just one member of the community who added me and then so on, all communities are buzzing with superlative discussions and everyone is able to help everyone out. LinkedIn as a product is targeting to do such a thing, but it's happening over Whatsapp and Slack, un-intentionally. The best part of whatsapp is its reach. Slack is still limited to Organisation and Tech-savvy folks.

Your product might bring people together, save time, educate them - think what people are able to do with all this extra empowerment (network, time, knowledge etc.).

 - Ecommerce apps like Flipkart let people gift and donate stuff that they were finding hard to buy and ship.

 - IRCTC, Ola, MMT enables me to help my parents, living remotely, have a safe trip whenever they want to. I can mostly track them during their travel.

 - Dunzo is helping you attend the friend's wedding because the parcel will be picked from the station and delivered to destination without your sweat.

 - Bigbasket is saving you the fuel that you would have burnt in finding parking to be able to buy some tomatoes.

Manage the By-products too... 

You can clearly see that some by-products are really strong while some are weak and can be built upon. That's where the By-product manager comes in. You can identify the upshots of your product and build upon them.

1. Identify the upshots(by-products) of your product
• What exactly are users using it for?
• What else are they using it for? Or What is it enabling them to do?
• Other than solving the problem, what are their needs and wants 
• How has it impacted their lives outside of solving their problem. 
2. Explore the new problem scope - new use cases
• Do you see a new feature, product? 
• Is there an opportunity to help them, or take their experience to new level? 
• Is there an opportunity to sell?
3. You may either solve for it, or just leverage it for marketing better

Your product is creating new problems to solve.
New problems are new opportunities. If you are not tapping this, someone else will. And that's why it is extremely important to think outside the current problem scope and think about the upshot for your product.

What's the upshot of your product going to be?  

[Video of my talk at Upstart on this topic] [Slide deck]





If you have reached this far you should totally leave a comment about how you liked it and share this post with others.  

PM Job Seeker's Checklist

I've been helping a lot of techies and accidental PMs to understand the scope of Product Management. So many times that I was able to put most FAQs and basics in this short course. So while this covers the basics, people do come up with more questions on the role, some real challenges they are facing and also about getting the job of a product manager. 

Introduction To Product Management: ChalkStreet

One guy from IIM recently took up a BA role and is now looking to get into PM. But he wasn't getting any calls for job interviews. 

Here's what I suggested. I believe it is also the checklist for anyone looking for product roles:

1. Resume. Not sure if your Resume clearly indicates you are a good fit for the role. Look at the example of another sales guy trying to move to PM role. If you are moving from a non-PM to a PM role, you've to be extra careful that the Resume states clearly you are looking for a PM role, otherwise, the recruiter might just think they've picked an irrelevant resume and trash it. Look for all relevant JDs on Linkedin and tweak your resume to use all the keywords so that it can match those. Mostly the buzzwords are around specifications, PRD, wireframes, metrics, etc. Please make sure you compress your job summary to a 1-page resume. If you have more than 10 years of experience - you can think about a 2 Page as well. Not more than that. 

Before

After

More tips about how to write the BEST resume. 

2. Where can people find you? Better places for a PM role are Linkedin, Hirist, Instahyre, Angellist, Cutshort, and Naukri. Keep all these profiles updated. In fact, if you are applying for consumer profiles also keep Twitter, Facebook and other social profiles active and updated.    

3. Patience: Keep at it. It may take 3 to 6 months if you are doing all the right things, for relevant opportunities to open up. Apply, re-apply with personalized cover letters. Btw, the email that you write is a cover letter, don't write a separate one and attach it with your Resume. That's silly. 

4. Not just what you know, it is also about who do you know. Network! Networking is not just about sending LinkedIn requests. Attend good startup and product related events, join PM communities on FB, Linkedin, Meetup, Whatsapp. Meet people, learn from them, connect at different levels, ask questions, find out what people are looking for. Be active on social media. Engage with relevant folks and comment on their tweets or re-tweet them with your opinions. This will help you understand where you stand and how you can position yourself correctly. Look for ways in which you can help people. That's the best way to network.  

5. Prepare better. The chances you get will be limited, don't mess them up. If you haven't read some of the books like Cracking the PM Interview, Decode to Conquer your preparation may not be complete. At least read one of them. In general, as a PM you should be reading a lot of good books on business, startups, and product design. There are a lot of lists of good books available - here's one of mine. You are expected to know about and have opinions on trending technologies like Blockchain and Machine learning even if it is unrelated. You should also follow some current affairs about your domain. 

I am sure he'd get a job soon. I'd update when he does! :-) 

Update: 23/12/2017 - He is placed at Zynga Bangalore now. 

Update: A More updated deck from a recent workshop I took for Upgrad. In the deck, I talk about how to deal with different types of interview questions and assignments that you get as a part of the interview process.  


If you have reached this far you should totally leave a comment for Ujjwal Trivedi about how you liked it.  

Revisiting the PsychUp Checklist

Based on my previous studies I created this psych up checklist. It is for product managers to be able to quickly evaluate what their products are missing in terms of how well the products appeal to the Right brain of their customers/users. At a recent workshop I took, a lot of participants used it and I was able to find checklist items that people slipped on most frequently.

A lot of it may be due to not being able to understand it or not being able to apply it. I'd work to gather more examples and add more actionable steps so that every one can use it.

However, till that time here's the list of most frequently missed biases, and some of my commentaries.

Salience Bias - If there are multiple things seeking user's attention, the one that is most easy to understand or looks familiar is the one user is going to go for first. Hence, making the most useful feature prominent and most simple to use is very important. Your UI needs to drive the users to do what you *want* them to do.

Stereotype - Making it "look" like a winner. This is very common. Making UI look beautiful is considered one of the last things that people want to do for their products. It's ok. But, if you want to scale and you want users to perceive your product as more valuable, it is important to make it look rich.

Risk Aversion Bias - Making users feel more in control. It's again very important to make your users feel in complete control by talking to their fears and concerns. It's like people want autonomous cars, but I am sure they'd pay extra to buy the one which allows manual driving. Nothing in your product should scare your users, or even make them think or be concerned. Make sure they can reset to default settings easily.

Anchoring - Setting the expectations right. This one is difficult to understand and implement. It does require some diffused thinking and making iterative changes. It is specific to consumption and pricing.

Bandwagon effect - Providing social proof (this was a surprise!). I am surprised that people forget putting testimonials or social proof of who their current users are and what they think. It works like a charm if done correctly. Obviously, you'd have to keep it real and make it look as real as possible and it needs to "connect" with your TG.

Decoy effect - Introducing Decoy pricing plans to make the target plan look more profitable. This one is again a less used magical formula. When you add two price plans, add another no brainer high price low value option comparable to your target plan. When it looks more profitable than something, users end to think it is the most profitable. Higher conversions!

If you have had success stories or trouble using any of these do comment and I'd see how I can help you further. And if you haven't taken the Psych Test yet, now is a good time.




If you have reached this far you should totally leave a comment about how you liked it and share this post with others.  

How to create a data driven Product Roadmap?

A product roadmap is NOT a product backlog. So essentially it's not a prioritised list of tasks that you'd want to do. A Product Roadmap is Product Strategy. It entails, what is it that you are building, who for, and little insight about how? Are you going to cater to a wider audience in future or provide more value to similar set of customers that you are targeting now. I've tried to cover most of how one should be looking at the products (Problem-Solution Framework) in this video.

I've tried multiple ways of creating a Product Roadmap and have come to define a good way for creating a comprehensive one from which one can derive s.m.a.r.t goals. You know Goals need to be SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, reasonable, time-bound). And there is so much talk of being data-driven - just that not everyone has a clue of how to become data-driven. Most articles that I read about creating roadmap are about coming up with a laundry list of things and prioritizing them. You definitely need to do that but you might always miss out certain aspects when you go by that method. So, I came up with a framework to create a Product Roadmap that is both comprehensive and data driven.

Things I've tried earlier:

1. Doing a competition analysis and identifying list of features that need to be built. Prioritising it.

2. Collecting all ideas from every one, get every one to vote on them and then prioritise them based on Votes and Impact versus Effort analysis by tech team. E.g. Pandora does it really well.

2. Setting Goals based on the vision, deriving high level tasks and then create discuss, debate and decide priorities. This is actually much better than first one but it is not comprehensive. Your current set of goals may be too narrow or too wide.

You may still need to do some of it but these things have been very random.

Finally, to come up with a Roadmap that is both data driven and covers all aspects of growth I decided to draw it through the standard Metrics of Acquisition, Conversion, Money, Engagement (ACME). You'd still need to debate, discuss and document your vision, short term, medium term and long term goals. But, putting it in these broad categories gives you a good coverage.

Step - 1
Define your vision and tentative goals or themes in next few months typically next 1 month, 3 months and 6 months. This can be very high level -
E.g. 1 want to improve revenue
E.g. 2 want to optimise new user acquisition/conversion
E.g. 3 want to improve user retention

Bucket your goals in to ACME. You should have Acquisition Goals, Conversion Goals, Monetisation or Revenue Goals, Engagement Goals. In fact, if the vision is clearly defined you can just start noting your ACME goals. Start with high level as given in example and then break things down to smaller items.

Step - 2
This is good place to have lot of dependencies and conflicts. E.g. You might notice that you can't achieve target revenue without improving both acquisition and conversion. And hence priority of each goal would need to be analysed again. Similarly you may have kept engagement as short term goal but the tasks required to achieve it may not be complete in short term so that again needs you to shuffle your itinerary.

After this exercise you should have a list of of things sorted in a more feasible order. You'd again need to prioritise this list. One way of prioritising is to gather all stakeholders in a room and explain every one the task and get developer and QA guys to rate the effort - low, medium, high. I would define low as less than a day, medium as 3 days and high as 5 days or more. Similarly, product and business guys should rate the impact of that task as low, medium, high. Obviously, low effort high impact tasks would get priority.  

Step - 3 
Define how you will measure the success for each task. Define it to the metric and formula you'd use to measure the impact of that task. This can be complex and one may not be able to do that in a meeting like setup. However, assigning two stakeholders for each task and both of them working in pairs to come up with this works great. This is very important step.

Many times when you try defining the measurement metric for tasks you may realise how easy/tough or trivial it can be. In quite a few case it unveils what we are not measuring and we should. It also makes a case for better instrumentation of your product.

Step - 4
Go ahead and publish this to all stakeholders. Let every one be inspired by what's coming and what they are going to build for the world.

Thoughts? Questions? Please leave your comments.

Leveraging User Psychology for Products - Part 2

The Social Psychology checklist for products and PMs - Part 2  

Why this checklist? 

Because we are one of the users of the products we create and since we are human since birth (most of us), we like to think we know humans very well. At least we are confident that we understand ourselves. But the truth is, we don’t. Most of human behaviour is a result of subconscious processes. We are unaware of them. Lot of cognitive studies have revealed facts that startle us about our own behaviour. 

This checklist is not for every one. But, we’d figure out in a bit if this is for you or not. It would makes sense to you if you are looking to evaluate your existing product, or just before the beta release and are working on packaging for a successful launch.

Successful products rely a lot on packaging. It is easy to feel the 'Magic' that they create, but hard to comprehend. You have worked hard on a product and you wouldn't want to miss on the 'magic' part of it. This article talks a little about how PMs can contribute in packaging the product so that it creates the desired magnetism.

Is introduction of product (or promotion) consistent with beliefs (hopes, dreams) of users? [Selective Perception Bias]

Introduce the product with a 'Simple' message that are consistent with what user already believes in, or needs, or wants or aspires to be/do. That's how celebrity endorsements work at the subtle level. If users like the celebrity, they justify product being good and likewise. To use this we need to create messages that don't talk about the product, but about user's belief. E.g. Patanjali’s products

[If you are able to understand the last para, you should definitely checkout the whole list]

Messaging/Promotion
Does the message bring user in right emotional state?
Priming - Again this factor can be used for preparing a message that connect with the users emotionally. To be specific we need to take steps to bring user in the zone, before asking them to purchase. That's Priming. Try to trigger the emotion that would make them purchase a product, if they feel connected they are more likely to buy. The key to prime up the prospect is to understand what hope or fear of the user will motivate them to purchase, and then trigger that specific emotion. Essentially, it also means talking about an emotion or situation before talking about the product/feature.

Does the message clearly convey what users are missing out by not using the product?
Loss aversion: This bias says that Fear of losing is more motivating for people then the thought of what they can gain. Assuming that users need your product, your messaging should amplify that need. Make it an urgent need. As if the world will not be the same if you don't act now. There are many ways to do create a virtual scarcity: limited time offers, limited editions, limited options, messaging as “You will lose X% savings” instead of saying “You can save X%”.

Do you talk like an expert in the field? 
Seer sucker illusion: Research suggests that people believe it when so called 'Experts' have said something relevant. ‘Following a trend’ is almost hardcoded in people, thanks to religions of the world. Using some seer's advice in your messaging can become freaking effective. That's how random certifications and research quoted on toothpaste and washing powders work. That's how "Awarded as best app in xyz" works. 'xyz' is discounted. Also, if we mix it with an Authoritative tone or gesture - it can work wonders. Milgram and Cialdini's experiments suggest that Authority can trump people's belief. Staff picks, Expert says, We recommend, Tripadvisor Ranks… all talk of Authority.

Does it beat user’s natural defence system? 
Focus on zero risk bias - Particularly for purchase related messaging, a zero risk transaction is much easier to do. 100% refund policies, No CC required trials etc. work this way.

How will the product bring the user back?
Zeigarnik Effect: In simple terms it can stated as an itch to complete something that was started. How many of you have received emails from online stores saying 'there are items in your cart'? It would be clever to introduce something that user can start but may not finish. It's a great excuse to connect with them again and it is a great way to be in a customers mind for long. Social Games use this effect very cleverly to continue long engagement with their players. Remember Farmville - "your crop is ready". Using this effect can boost your Retention multiple times over.

Do you solve a recent need/want?
Recency - Clubbing with a recent event (that triggers fear/hopes) makes it more 'wanted'. What should be running in users mind when they look at your product or promotion. This tells us why hand sanitisers sales go up in one country with outbreak of contagious diseases in other countries. This bias should be used to position the product/promotion. A user is most likely to purchase data backup app, when they buy a new phone or lost an older one. The tough part is to identify the user's recent situation/pain point and reach out when they are most likely to purchase it, but it is sometimes easier as compared to identifying when they'd most need it.

Does it make them feel elite?
Velvet rope effect: How often we wished we were on the other side of the red velvet rope at the entrance. A loosely hanging rope is hardly a barrier, but symbols are so effective that it very effectively separates two sections (at clubs, events). Creating an elite club is sure shot way to get in to the mind of the other non-elite masses. It triggers a need for acceptance. High price (iPhone), Invite only (Inbox/One Plus) are some brilliant examples of creating the velvet rope effect. Your product is not for everyone, it cannot be, it should not be. Why then, shouldn't your users be proud about using it? Put them on the other side of velvet rope.

Do they know their friend is also using it?
Bandwagon effect: (get someone in their group to like it): Fortunately in web and mobile software we have social plugins that can show friends from their friend list who have endorsed your product. This is how things go viral. If one person in the group says yes to you, getting the next person is probably half the effort and it reduces down exponentially in converting the next set of adopters after that.

What is your unit of consumption?
Unit Bias - Increase the size of your plates. User studies identified that if people are given larger plates, they tend to eat more. You may want to carefully understand your unit of consumption and play with it to inspire user behaviour. E.g. Recharge - if you keep ready slots of 100, 200, 500 people are more likely to use them, instead of smaller amounts like 10, 50. For Uber the default amount of pre-payment to your PayTM wallet is Rs 300. Most transfers will be for Rs 300. Rs 300 has become the basic unit of transfer. Also, it gives people a sense that a cab ride should cost them up to Rs 300. They’ll even think it is costly if it costs more than Rs300. Interestingly, Ola keeps 500 as their first unit.

Have you optimised your Anchor placement? 
Anchoring Bias - Consciously Set baselines, all negotiation will be around the first offer. People give much undue weight to first thing they notice or the most salient thing. If the cheapest Mc Donald’s burger is Rs 20, most orders will happen around 20 to 100. When the baseline increased from 20 to 50, the orders happen around 50 and 200. You need to carefully place the prices around an Anchor that gives you most optimum volume and margins.

You can actually try out this quiz about your product's readiness- http://bit.ly/uppsyched 

Thoughts? Questions? Please leave your comments. 

Leveraging User Psychology for Products

The Social Psychology checklist for products and PMs
Part 1  

Did you know that most Anti-smoking campaigns work in favour of cigarette companies? It's because Anti-smoking campaigns triggers the urge to smoke. This and many other studies startle us how our subconscious mind leads us to taking decisions that are not strictly logical. 

I was quite intrigued by these facts and the more I studied social psychology, the more I figured how less we know about our own biases and about those of our users. I penned down some notes to understand some common biases better and also how as a Product guy I can leverage some of them to create engaging products. 

You can take this quick test to evaluate how you fair, or read the blog and then continue with the test.    

1. Does it provide instant gratification? 

It is the #1 engaging characteristic you can add to your products. For anything that you asked your user to do, user should be able to perceive a clear and immediate return. E.g. WhatsApp - User sets-up the app and his network is ready. LinkedIn - user enters past organisation/institutes, starts finding very relevant people they know and can add to their network. Quickly gratify a users curiosity and they are hooked.

2. Are the most simple features the most useful? Or Can you make the most useful feature most simple?
Because of 'Salience bias' users will try out the most easily recognizible thing first and base their impression out of that. Many a times your product may have 'n' great features and they all work awesome. But what is it that user is going to try first? Most likey the simplest, most easily gettable feature. That also happens to be the least cared for (poorly implemented/tested) feature. Make sure the simplest feature works best and is highlighted enough to be used first. Make sure the complexity unlocks after purchase, not before that.

3. Does it look like a winner? (Stereotyping Bias) 
If it looks like a duck, it is a duck. People stereotype things. If it looks like a winner, talks like a a winner, it is a winner. Subconsciously users base their decisions on the way things look and feel. That's Stereotyping. If the product looks edgy, even if it works awesome, people may find it hard to make a purchase. Because their first impression was negative, and mind wants to keep first impressions. This is particularly true for products that require users to make 'purchase' decisions without spending lot of trial time with the product. We can use Stereotyping in our favour by aping the tone, finesse, clarity of winning products.

4. Illusion of Control 
Give enough options so that user knows they have complete control over the way product works or behaves. They are seldom going take control in their hands. They are going to use automatic operations most often. But, they'd choose to go automatic only when they know they have an option to un do it. Also, in exceptional case product should be able to help users recognise, diagnose, and recover from errors. Make users feel smart - if there is anything they do not understand, internally they feel less confident and externally end up blaming the system as too complex.

5. Does it stick to conventions
We talk about innovation, and people crave innovation. But they seek innovation in output. They do not want to change their habits. The status-quo bias. The best and most intuitive flow in your favor would be the one that people are used to. User delights comes from the fact that they do the same thing and get different results. However, if the path is unconventional there has to be a much bigger reward. That's what would make user feel like a hero. More about it in Outcome bias.

6. Does End result justify the path taken? 
PMs and designers can use Outcome bias to their favour. If there is a complexity that a user has to go through and there are no work arounds, just make sure that the outcome of it is nothing less than delightful. If the Outcome is clearly great your users will end up justifying the tedious road taken. So, if there is an unavoidable complexity, make sure you reward the user in the end, have them enjoy their moment of joy - or else get ready to be hated.

Pricing:

Is the pricing commensurate to one most important problem being solved? 

It cannot be based on number of features, because of scope insensitivity. It can only be based on one important, most needed feature that solves the most important (however small) problem for the user. Small problem = small price, Big problem = big price. Rest of the features are simply discounted. 

Did you take this quick test?
Thoughts? Questions?