The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback

by Dan Olsen

“Olsen's Law of Usability”: The more user effort required to take an action, the lower the percentage of users who will take that action. The less user effort required, the higher the percentage of users who will take that action.

“How easy or difficult is the product to use?” and allow ratings on a seven-point bipolar scale: Very difficult to use Difficult to use Somewhat difficult to use Neither easy nor difficult to use Somewhat easy to use Easy to use Very easy to use

Usability expectations would be quite different for a product intended for highly trained power users as opposed to one for a mainstream consumer market. Your personas, discussed in Chapter 3 and later in this chapter, should help inform this.

Usability answers the question, “Can customers use your product?” Delight answers the question, “Do customers enjoy using your product?” Delight, which goes beyond simply avoiding user frustration, means evoking positive emotions. Products that delight users are enjoyable and fun to use.

the iceberg shown in Figure 8.1. Like an actual iceberg, only a small portion of UX design is visible and immediately apparent—but there is much more beneath the surface. Starting at the bottom, the four layers of the iceberg are conceptual design, information architecture, interaction design, and visual design.

The conceptual design, the iceberg's bottom layer, is the underlying concept that forms the essence of the user experience.

The next layer is information architecture, which determines how you structure your product's in...

The next layer is interaction design, which defines how the user and your product i...

The top layer that sticks above the water—the portion of the iceberg that users see—is visual des...

That is, you'll either pay attention to the details of what you're hearing from a small number of customers (qualitative) or to the aggregated results for a large number of customers (quantitative).

First off, it's helpful to prepare a test script that lists what you plan to show and ask the user.

It can help to conduct a pilot test with a team member first to work out any kinks and become comfortable with the flow,

During the test, it's important that the user verbalize his or her thoughts so you can hear them.

You can start by asking them about their current behavior and feelings about the key benefit you plan to provide.

Then you could ask them what they like and don't like about their experiences with taxis and their overall level of satisfaction.

Notice that you haven't even mentioned Uber at this point in the interview. You're just trying to understand the customers' needs, their current solution, what they like and don't like about it, and how satisfied they are. You're trying to discover qualitative information you can use to validate your hypotheses about your target customer and your value proposition. Discovery

If a user takes an action on a prototype but doesn't verbalize that they did or why they did, a good moderator might say, “I see you just clicked on that button. Could you tell me why?”

Open questions give the customer plenty of latitude in answering. They usually begin with “why,” “how,” and “what.” In contrast, closed questions limit the customer's possible responses (e.g., to yes or no).

The Hypothesize-Design-Test-Learn Loop As you go through this loop, you transition from problem space to solution space and back again.

When you change one of your main hypotheses, it's called a pivot. A pivot is larger in magnitude than the change you normally see as you iterate along the path you have chosen; it means a significant change in direction.

If, despite your best efforts, your target customers are only lukewarm on your MVP, you should consider a pivot.

if you haven't yet identified a customer archetype that is very excited about your MVP, then you should consider pivoting.

There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns. The ones we don't know we don't know.

A group of users that share a common characteristic—such as the month that they signed up—is called a cohort.

the Product-Market Fit Pyramid—an actionable model that defines the components of product-market fit and how they are connected.

Your market consists of your target customers and their needs,

your product is the combination of your value proposition, feature set...

The Lean Product Process guides you through the formulation and testing of your hypotheses with these six steps: Determine your target customers Identify underserved customer needs Define your value proposition Specify your minimum viable product (MVP) feature set Create your MVP prototype Test your MVP with customers

Your retention rate gives you a quantitative measure of product-market fit, and cohort analysis shows you how it changes over time.

list of 10 best practices for creating successful products.

1. Have a point of view but stay open-minded.

2. Articulate your hypotheses.

3. Prioritize ruthlessly.

As Peter Drucker said, “Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.”

4. Keep your scope small but focused.

smaller batch sizes encourage focus and are completed more quickly, enabling faster feedback from customers.

5. Talk to customers.

Don't allow too much time to pass since your last user test; customers will always surprise you with unexpected learning.

6. Test before you build.

7. Avoid a local maximum.

You can tell you are in a local maximum when you are unable to drive additional improvements to your product-market fit or to your key metrics.

8. Try out promising tools and techniques.

9. Ensure your team has the right skills.

10. Cultivate your team's collaboration.