I wrote this email to someone yesterday who asked me how they could build better experiences.
(I've redacted a little for this post)
What is stopping you from creating a better experience for your customer?
Why don't they: -Buy from you (or do so more often?) -Learn how to use your product faster -Stay engaged
When it comes to improving your current experience, we want to understand a few things:
-What are people doing now, that is not enabling them to do what they want to do -What would we like them to do instead? -In what context are they making decisions related to your experience (are they distracted, are they stressed, are they short on time etc...)
Once you answer the questions above, you can then select what you want to enable your customers to do.
To get started on this, you want to know what could be stopping them (or what is helping that you can enhance).
-Is it because they lack something like a skill or knowledge? -Is it because the environment around them does not allow it (time, resources) -Is it because of norms? - people around them, society, community? -Is it internal? for example lack of belief?
Once you know what is stopping them, then you can think about how to help them.
So you map what is stopping them to what can overcome that barrier
If it is a skill or knowledge - then you design things to help enable that If its environment - can we design something to help make this easier (faster, cheaper) If it's about motivation - we can look at the type of motivation they may have (external or internal)
With motivation in mind, we then think about 3 psychological needs:
Autonomy
Are we giving the customers choices in our experience that they feel are putting them in control? Competence: are we encouraging the customer to feel as though they are making progress in our experience?
Relatedness
Can we make it so they feel there is support/others around to help them (think community for example)
All this can then give you the direction to design experiences that will enable your customers to make the decisions they wanted to make in the first place.
In Summary
In your experience look out for things like attention, beliefs, choice, etc... and figure out how to design for them in your products (app, web, platform)
Your experiences should be easy to use and attractive and your comms should be timely.
Build a journey that then looks at different stages, and designs solutions to address the barriers people have at each of these.
Think of it this way: how can I make this as simple and relatable as possible to this person that has this context, mental model, attention, time, choice, etc... to succeed.
If you are interested in learning more, I made a Behavior Design For Beginners course. Link in the description.
#behavioralscience #innovation #digitaltransformation #servicedesign #productmanagement