User analysis is important as a result of it helps to review folks’s conduct, wants, and motivations. UX designers are sometimes accountable for a transparent interface. However, product managers and advertising and marketing departments additionally want to review consumer habits and assist designers enhance the interface.
Products are developed primarily for the customers. We analyze what choices they use, why they selected this product, what they don’t like about opponents’ merchandise, and so on. They continuously work together with the product and take note of utterly various things than we beforehand thought within the firm. Although there isn’t any common record of questions to know the wants of customers higher, there are particular factors that we might advise you to think about.
This article relies on the Nektony software program improvement firm’s expertise creating Mac cleanup functions. In this text, we are going to let you know how we chosen customers for in-depth interviews and evaluation of our functions and what we modified in our merchandise because of the info we acquired.
A typical mistake when analyzing customers
In the previous, after we made some adjustments to merchandise, we regularly relied on our personal subjective opinions of what could be higher for the customers. However, product utilization situations amongst firm staff may be very completely different from the utilization situations of actual customers. When you’re employed with a product for a very long time and know all its choices and capabilities completely, you have a look at the interface, usability, and so on., in another way. Therefore, firstly, it’s vital to review the ache factors of clients and ask them about doable adjustments within the product.
How to decide on interviewees
At the start of the product evaluation of Nektony apps, we confirmed the merchandise to everybody we knew, associates and colleagues from different firms, and requested them what they thought in regards to the apps. But, as I famous above, this isn’t the precise method. Later, we began working solely with actual customers who as soon as contacted our technical help service.
Among the letters in help, you could find many customers who could also be loyal to the corporate.
- First, it’s not chilly contacts we’re reaching out to. We already communicated efficiently with them; they contacted us, and we solved their issues; that’s, they remained happy clients.
- Secondly, individuals who write to technical help to resolve a query (fairly than go, for instance, to some discussion board and complain) – often this can be a particular class of people who find themselves able to share their ideas, spend their time to make the product higher for personal use sooner or later. So, such folks willingly comply with turn out to be interviewees.
- Third, these are actual customers, not hypothetical ones. Interviews with such customers present extra correct knowledge on what precisely they like and what they don’t like, which choices are used extra typically, and which aren’t clear.
Stage 1: Gathering contacts to whom we are going to write in regards to the interview
We promote our apps via the App Store and our web site worldwide. However, we didn’t choose respondents by nation. The most important criterion for accumulating respondents is the extent of their loyalty to the corporate, which characterizes the extent of their willingness to comply with an interview. In our case, the help service all the time provides the consumer’s loyalty tag after speaking with him when fixing points. So, downloading an inventory of such contacts was not an issue.
Stage 2: Sending letters and making ready for the interview
We ready a letter asking you to comply with an interview and assist us make our product higher. We despatched these letters individually, not via a mailing service, as a result of personalization is necessary. In normal, we experimented with the content material of the letter. We modified it relying on the historical past of interplay with the particular person, in addition to on the outcomes of responses to my earlier letters to different folks.
You can instantly supply a bonus to the consumer for the time spent, for instance, one other app as a present or a reduction on the subsequent buy. But my private opinion is that it’s higher to offer a present to the consumer after the interview as a pleasing bonus. From expertise, these individuals who agree to offer an interview, not for a bonus, are often extra within the outcomes of the interview. They are actually extra loyal and open — extra keen to speak in regards to the professionals and cons of the appliance for them personally, and so on.
Before beginning the assembly with the respondent, it is important to organize a script. It can change a bit of relying on the particular person. The respondent needs to be relaxed, and the complete dialog needs to be in a pleasant environment.
Stage 3: The interview
Approaching the interview itself — The main aim and all our inquiries to respondents consist of understanding the next:
- Who is a consumer of the appliance?
- How will customers be divided by sorts? (Like situations of conduct, relying on age, kind of exercise, pursuits, and so on.)
- How precisely do folks use our apps? (launch frequency, most favourite choices, why they selected our product, and so on.)
- What is the product’s most important worth to customers?
Now, we are going to briefly discuss in regards to the situation of communication with the respondent in line with the pre-prepared script. It can be necessary that you just open a doc or have a paper the place you’ll take notes.
- Introduction: greetings, remembering to say thanks for their time, and asking some quick questions of the particular person to gather details about the nation of residence, kind of exercise, age, and so on. Of course, you don’t must ask instantly about all this; for instance, you’ll be able to mark the approximate age of an individual (perceive visually), or in the event that they let you know how they spent the weekend with their household — you recognize their household standing and life-style. At this stage, I additionally requested how lengthy the particular person has been utilizing a Mac as a result of, in our case, it is extremely necessary. The particular person’s consumer habits could rely upon this.
- Permission to file a video. Of course, we have been making notes, however the video recordings allowed me to return to the interview, examine it extra deeply, and make a transcript of the dialog.
- Studying the appliance utilization situation. We requested the particular person to run our app and use it of their regular mode with out my feedback. In the method, you’ll be able to ask the particular person questions — however be certain that you don’t distract them from the standard actions in this system.
- Question. After observing the consumer’s actions, we requested them further questions: open and closed questions. Here are some pattern questions:
Open questions:
- How did you discover Nektony applications, and why did you select them?
- When was the final time you used MacCleaner Pro, and what performance did you utilize?
- Which choice was tough for you to know and why?
Closed questions:
- Was this or that performance in this system helpful for you?
- Would you want us to vary the app’s interface?
- Is it doable to get again to you after a while for a re-interview?
To sum up. At this stage of the interview, you’ll be able to ask the interviewees if they’ve any questions for you. Listen! And give a bonus reward as a thanks to them for their time.
Unexpected outcomes from interviews
Many of the consumer responses got here as an entire shock to me and the complete workforce as an entire. Things we by no means paid consideration to and thought that customers didn’t want in any respect turned out to be a major half of their interplay with functions:
- Sound results. People prefer it when apps have sound results once they launch or press buttons. It wasn’t necessary to anybody on our workforce, so we didn’t even give it some thought earlier than.
- Welcome window and outcomes. People just like the animations when this system begins and additionally after some motion, comparable to cleansing the disk. People wished to see a window with congratulations on their profitable outcomes (to indicate the completion was finished appropriately). On the opposite, we all the time tried to simplify this system and get rid of pointless home windows and consumer clicks.
- Texts. People don’t wish to learn. Previously, we tried to all the time add an explanatory textual content to at least one or another choice in order that the consumer may familiarize himself and be certain of his actions when cleansing the Mac. So, we shortened all these texts and left solely the necessary ones. It is necessary to make the names and icons of every choice clear in order that all the things is intuitive with out textual content. At the interview — it turned out that not all choice icons have been comprehensible to customers.
- Expectations. The consumer typically expects one thing utterly completely different from this system or a sure choice. Before including any new options, it’s higher to conduct interviews and check your hypotheses. Our firm retains an inventory of all needs from customers. Before including a brand new characteristic, we first analyze this letter, type by the quantity of requests, see how many individuals are wanting for such a characteristic, and solely after that decide about the necessity to add a brand new characteristic.
Stage 4: First prototypes and repeat interviews
It is necessary that after analyzing the required adjustments within the applications, prototypes needs to be made and re-shown to customers. As we stated above, typically you might encounter unreasonable consumer expectations. Here are my subsequent steps earlier than finalizing product adjustments:
- Preparation of prototypes. There may be many prototypes. In my case, I made greater than 20 prototypes till we selected probably the most handy model of the interface.
- Demonstrating the prototype to customers. This stage is a repetition of all our earlier steps, the place we observe exactly how the customers use the appliance on the first launch, how a lot all the things is evident to them, which choices they noticed at first, and which they neglected. It occurred when the customers used the choices — they selected in another way than we supposed. Then, we redesigned the product.
- Final decision-making. When we lastly discover an choice that’s comprehensible to customers, we are able to hand over the duty to the designer and the complete improvement workforce. That workforce then works on the adjustments within the applications.
Examples of adjustments primarily based on interview outcomes
Using examples of the interface of some of our applications, we wished to indicate what adjustments occurred in them, because of the evaluation of consumer wants via interviews. This course of should not solely be about UX design but additionally should contemplate rethinking some choices and the necessity to present these choices to customers.
App Cleaner & Uninstaller
Previously, on the first launch, the consumer noticed the details about the quantity of applications on their Mac, the quantity of service recordsdata, and extensions. We discovered that this info scares many non-geek customers who don’t perceive what service recordsdata are used for. We additionally added the Expert Mode Option, and solely on this mode can the customers see the record of service recordsdata that might be deleted when uninstalling applications. The common consumer doesn’t wish to see these recordsdata; they solely wish to click on on one “magic” button — and for this system to resolve their downside instantly.
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Unneeded info in the precise panel. The most important choice beneath this info is within the blind spot. |
After
The most important operate for which this app is downloaded is now in the precise panel. |
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Duplicate File Finder
During the interview, it turned clear that every consumer has their very own targets when utilizing the appliance. Some customers wish to discover solely duplicate photographs within the Photo Library; others run this system to merge their folders with duplicates. We all the time information them in line with the situation of looking for all duplicates they’re comfy with.
Previously, they needed to take further steps to succeed in their aim. So we utterly modified the primary window and added completely different capabilities to it — instantly — in line with teams of consumer wants.
| Before | After |
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Disk Space Analyzer
During the interviews, it turned clear that persons are extra accustomed to and perceive when the appliance interface is just like the interface of system applications on macOS. For instance, folks discover it simpler to click on on folders and discover their contents, as they’re used to doing within the Finder, fairly than clicking on a chart. So we’ve added a Folder Outline file view as finished within the Finder.
| Before | After |
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MacCleaner Pro
It is necessary for customers to see animations, stunning photos — and a minimal of textual content. Thanks to the truth that we took all this under consideration within the new design (after the interviews), we managed to make the appliance extra comprehensible for the consumer and enhance buy conversions after downloading the trial model.
We additionally added the “magic” that customers requested for — cleansing all junk recordsdata in a single click on.
| Before | After |
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Final suggestions
I like to recommend transcribing every particular person interview after which utilizing the Value Proposition Canvas to establish consumer values and wishes. This subject wants a separate article, however you’ll be able to google it and discover lots of details about this course of. Take the time to do the next for the very best success.
- Exchange experiences with different product managers and present them the product. Yes, these managers should not your customers, however typically they can provide you worthwhile recommendation, relying on their expertise.
- The consumer likes to be led by the hand and advised what to do subsequent after every step.
- Make the command names and icons as simple and clear as doable to be instantly comprehensible with out further textual content.
- Combining performance and displaying extras, like further choices the place the consumer doesn’t anticipate to see them, is a foul concept.
- Bring the primary performance of this system to the beginning window (as proven above within the Duplicate File Finder instance).
- Be very cautious with letters to technical help. It is a storehouse of info from the place you may get lots of insights into what’s necessary to customers. Fast and good technical help is the loyalty of your customers and the chance to additional work together with them for the event of your organization.
We hope that our expertise and examples are useful for you and offer you many insights of your individual.
Featured Image Credit: Provided by the Author; Thank you!
