- What not to cut
- Find what’s core
- Kill lame features
- What if the user…?
- But our customers want it
- Features that trigger errors
- Errors
- When features don’t matter
- Will it hurt?
- Prioritizing features
- Load
- Decisions
- Distractions
- Smart defaults
- Options and preferences
- When one option is too many
- Visual clutter
- Removing words
- Simplifying sentences
- Conversation
- Cutting time
- Removing too much
- You can do it
- Focus
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Find what’s core
The core of the experience is the thing that matters most to users. Find that, and it becomes clear what to cut and what to keep.
At Telewest, Alan Colville was asked to design a new set-top box incorporating a “record” feature.
With tight resources, Telewest couldn’t deliver everything on its wish list, but the company was paralyzed over what to drop. So Alan started user-testing competitors’ products to see what mattered to customers.
To his surprise, he found that customers were frustrated by recording shows while they were watching television. Their favorite shows were often on at the same time and overlapped with each other. If they tried to record two TV shows, they couldn’t watch a third. People complained that often they’d be recording two overlapping shows and wouldn’t be able to change channels.
Overcoming this problem required adding a third TV tuner to the box—a major design change. But Alan’s research showed that customers’ frustration with this point was stronger than their interest in value-added features such as “red button” applications and interactive TV services, both of which had strong business support but weak customer need.
The research convinced the managers to switch their resources into the additional tuner. It quickly came to be seen as a competitive advantage and Which? (the UK equivalent of Consumer Reports) points to this flexibility as the box’s major advantage.
When you’re prioritizing features, remember that users value features that relate to their everyday experience of a product. That’s subtly different from their most frequently used features. Begin by following the path set in your vision story. For a DVR, the ability to record and watch TV is closer to this everyday experience than pressing a red button to get mysterious “extras.”
Users also value features that eliminate their frustrations effortlessly. When you’re plotting your vision story, look for common frustrations and problems. Features that address these are your next priority. For a DVR, the ability to watch and record several shows at once turned out to be important enough to make it a priority.
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