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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Amy Jo Kim
Job stories give you a bridge from problem space to solution space. To build that bridge, make sure your research-based job stories are expressed in problem space, AKA your customer’s existing world—NOT in the solution space you want to draw them into.
Job Stories Capture your customers‘ needs, emotions, and motivations by writing job stories in this form: “When [trigger], I want to [purposeful activity], so I can [desired outcome].“
Existing Triggers Note internal and situational triggers that are already in your early customers’ lives. What emotions or urges could drive customers to seek out your product?
Customer Quotations Illustrate your most promising research-based findings with a customer quote―something that someone actually said or a composite that captures the pattern you’re seeing in the data. Pair each quotation with a corresponding job or habit story.
From Customer to Hero
We know from self-determination theory that people are motivated by meaningful progress. As you play a game, you gain skills and knowledge that prepare you to take on greater challenges. In storytelling terms, this is a classic hero’s journey.
In product design terms, you’re taking your customers on a learning journey that will transform them in some way. Your customer is the hero of their own story—the story unfolding inside their head about who they’ll become by us...
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Skills, Knowledge, and Relationships
Start by identifying the skills they’re developing, the knowledge they’re acquiring, and the relationships they’re building as they engage with your product. Each is a potential source of personal transformation.
What can my customers get better at that they care about? What skills do they develop when they engage with my product over time? What metric are they improving, and what makes that metric meaningful to them? What new powers, access, and privileges will open up as they progress?
Discovery Is for “Visitors”
You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Your product experience starts with discovery—the moment when visitors first hear about your product through a friend, or via social media or advertising.
For discovery to be effective, it’s vitally important to develop clear messaging about your core experience and value proposition. Your goal is to attract the right people, and to filter out those who aren’t suited to or don’t need or want your product. The better you know who you’re designing for, the more targeted your discovery messaging and acquisition funnel will be.
Use this template to write a discovery story that captures your hypothesis about how your early market will discover, value, and check out your product.
Onboarding Is for Newcomers
Onboarding is where visitors transform into newcomers. Think of onboarding as “indoctrination of the initiates”—people who have signed up and are eager to get value from the experience. Good onboarding invites them in, gets them engaged, and helps them learn the ropes.
Your onboarding story should answer these questions. Here’s the template.
Habit-Building Is for Regulars
What existing need and/or habit could drive customers to use my product? What skill or competency will they build by using my product? Is there uncertainty or anxiety attached to NOT having that skill?
Answering these questions will help you create an experience that keeps your customers coming back. Here are a couple of habit story templates to get you started.
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Mastery Is Intrinsically Motivating
We know from self-determination theory—and our own experience—that competence and mastery are deeply, intrinsically rewarding. We also know that mastery doesn’t come easy. It takes effort and self-transformation. That’s what gives it meaning and satisfaction.
Mastery Is Better than Progress
Many non-game designers understand this and eagerly adopt points, badges, leaderboards, and ratings systems to track and reward progress. They soon learn what every game designer knows: Numbers alone don’t confer meaning.
More than anything, experts want to show off their hard-won skills and knowledge. Depending on the game, you might create one or more of these elder game roles:
Champions develop their talent, excel, and become stars and local celebrities. Teachers create and run programs and classes to help their students learn. Greeters help newcomers feel welcome and answer their questions. Mentors select promising newcomers and share knowledge and resources. Game masters keep the camp running and settle disputes. Curators spotlight excellence, judge contests, create playlists, mount shows.
Out of necessity and resourcefulness, Lineage (an early Korean MMO) developed a “capture-the-flag” elder game. High-level players banded together and gained access to a different activity where they could raid a neighboring village, obtain the magical chalice, and then tax the citizenry.
Speed bump #1: Little feedback from early customers Customer feedback from your internal team, your investors, and your friends can skew your thinking.
Speed bump #2: No support for skill-building If your product is shallow or trivial, it can be tough to create a compelling customer journey.
Tinker, Prototype, and Playtest
All these successful innovations kicked off with an experimental phase of tinkering, prototyping, and playtesting. Great games and products aren’t fully designed up-front, they’re prototyped into existence, brought to life through iteration and tuning.
When you’re first bringing a game to life, “finding the fun” usually involves delivering some form of simple feedback. Feedback is more fundamental and pervasive than progression. Games use feedback loops; so do web and mobile apps.
Activities and feedback work together to engage your customers and let them know they’re on the right track. Investment is what happens when you collect, earn, customize, win, or build something you don’t want to lose. Triggers are reminders to return to the system you’re invested in. Together, all these techniques pull your customers back and complete your core learning loop. Let’s dig deeper into how these interlocking concepts work.
Stats worth checking: Self-improvement is a powerful force. It’s inherently motivating to see yourself getting better, stronger, faster, smarter, or more popular. That’s why so many systems tune their tracking algorithms to show visible progress, it gets people hooked and keeps them coming back.
Tell me a story: People love to tell and listen to stories. Anytime you get your customers to tell you a story about their experience—or even better, share that story with other customers—you’re driving investment. Stories can take many forms, such as updating Instagram, posting to a forum, or leaving a comment on a blog.
Enhance my self-image: Anytime you customize your identity or environment, you’re investing a bit of yourself into the system. If you purchase new running shoes, you’re enhancing your self-image as a runner, and investing money into the habit.
Help me connect with people: Some people thrive on social motivation and engagement.
Currency is for spending: Once customers are engaged with your system, giving them spendable currency is a powerful way to drive investment.
Duolingo, for example, awards “lingots” for completing activities, which you can spend on customizing your profile.
Motivate Skill-Building with Simple, Compelling Feedback
As you’re bringing your product to life, ask yourself: What feedback would help my customers perform their core activity better? When we think of games, we often focus on visible progression systems like points, badges, levels and leaderboards. Yet feedback is more fundamental than progress. Feedback lets you know you’re on the right track and motivates you to stay engaged in what you’re doing.
Start with Habit Stories List the most promising habit stories from your customer research, using this format: When I [come here regularly], I want [fresh XYZ] so I can [get that quick “hit” of satisfaction].
Design Short, Pleasurable, Repeatable Activities Write down the simplest version of a pleasurable, repeatable core activity or chain of activities that customers will experience during a typical product session.
Design Feedback to Motivate Skill-Building Write down the simplest bare-bones feedback your product can offer to help customers know they’re on the right track.
Drive Investment and Progress Write down the stats, stories, customization, collections, and other mechanisms that will drive deeper engagement and motivate return visits. What kind of progress or investment systems are already familiar to your customers?
Speed bump #1: Unappealing or boring activity Pleasure matters. It’s tough to build a sustainable core learning loop around an unappealing or boring activity.
