Editorial
The Gist
- Reevaluate feature value. Reassessing product features based on user engagement and impact can avoid resource wastage and focus on true value.
- Team collaboration crucial. Cross-functional teams are essential for developing products that meet genuine customer needs and market demands.
- Institutionalize development goals. Structuring product teams to embed long-term visions ensures sustained innovation and customer alignment.
Now more than ever, companies don't have the runway to experiment with product feature failures. Funding is scarce, and customer expectations are high. According to the Bureau of Labor, 90% of all startups fail within the first 10 years. Could it be because they don't know their customers well enough to prioritize and build the product features they value the most?
I was fortunate to host a panel stacked with leading product experts including Judd Antin, a well-known UX designer and consultant, Alistair Simpson, VP of design at Dropbox, and Claire Drumond, head of product marketing at Atlassian. In this article, I share some of the key points that stood out in our discussion about the hard truths companies must face to design useful, resilient products that deliver what customers really want.
Expanding How We Quantify the Value of Product Features
A Pendo research study found that 20% of features account for 80% of overall product use, with the remaining 80% of features rarely or never used. It's a pretty confronting statistic that forces you to wonder: Is measuring how much customers use product features the best way to know how valuable your products are to them?
Looking at how many people use particular product features can be helpful, according to UX design expert Judd Antin, but it's not the only way to measure value or, in some cases, if it could cause harm to a user.
Judd gave the example of Snapchat's recent solar system feature, which amounts to a friend ranking system. Friend ranking had a significant impact on the mental health of the (mainly) young people using it. While Snapchat's CEO pointed out that only a small percentage of users had engaged with this friend ranking feature, product experts and parents alike flagged a dangerous trend: Even if only a few users are using a feature, we shouldn't overlook the possibility that it could be harmful.
This example highlights a tough reality in product design: Feature usage is usually more complex than it seems at first glance.
Related Article: Most Prominent Psychological Principles That Govern Product Design
Reassessing Your Product Feature Initial Approach
According to panelist Claire Drumond of Atlassian, it doesn't matter if you ask a UX researcher, a designer, or a product expert: They'll all admit to having been part of organizations or projects that have wasted time and resources building and launching the wrong product features. As Claire noted, the problem is that most enterprise software products are built based on feature requests and complaints. It's not uncommon for product managers to build roadmaps around the things that need to be fixed within the next quarter.
For a product to genuinely succeed and withstand challenges, it must be designed based on a larger strategy and vision, not just isolated feature requests.
The hard truth is that product design can't follow a step-by-step waterfall approach and is not just about developing product features a few customers may want today. It’s about the larger product roadmap and what compelling story it will tell over time, which is something that should happen alongside a structured, research-driven product development process.
This process should have a clear strategy where insights drive the evolution of thinking and design. It also has to be genuinely adaptable to meet the ups and downs of the product lifecycle. If teams can manage this, they'll be much less likely to build something that fails or falls out of touch with market needs over time.
Related Article: Aiming To Be the 'Next Airbnb'? Follow These 5 Product-Development Steps
Understanding the Importance of Cross-Functional Product Teams
Alistair Simpson of Dropbox emphasized that building good products is much like playing a team sport. Just like in team sports, building great products is about working together toward a common goal. Having a shared vision and values helps everyone on the team collaborate better, plan strategically and adjust to changes quickly. It's like having a game plan that keeps us focused on what customers need, so we can create products they'll love.
Creating a "cross-functional" team of researchers, designers, product marketers, UX specialists and engineers and giving everyone a seat at the table is the best strategy to create successful, long-lived products.
The hard truth is that silos are detrimental to product innovation. Companies that build effective and psychologically safe spaces for different disciplines to bring their unique POV on the customer, the market and competition to the table will find that their product roadmap is more aligned with the actual needs of their users.
Related Article: What Is User Experience (UX) Design?
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Institutionalize Your Intentions
Judd had some great advice from Barack Obama, who once explained to the product team at Airbnb that if they wanted to see success, they’d have to "institutionalize their intentions."
What the former president was saying was that if you want to make a change "sticky," you need to create a structure to support and scale that change. In the world of product development, teams need to institutionalize their intentions toward better collaboration and more agile product development. They need to ensure they have the proper communication procedures in place to share research they have done so it is actionable, and teams design by consensus.
It also means putting the structure in place so that all designers, researchers and marketers have equal influence and a great understanding of the voice of the customer. If companies can combine this structure along with better processes, success metrics and a more in-tune vision of long-term success, they will be in a great position to build better and more customer-centric products in today’s competitive marketplace.
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