Thursday, March 1, 2012

Gift Giving and Product Development

Last October my nephew, Iveagh, celebrated his first birthday.  Because we’ve noticed that he seems to get really animated around music, I (Aunt Heather) decided to get him one of those baby pianos.  (Ok, maybe it was more for me than it was for him, but gosh, it was cute).  Since then, while he definitely gravitates toward the percussion family of instruments, he actually seems more enamored with the drum than he does with  the piano. 
In reflecting on the purchase, though, I realized that gift giving is so much like product development. We don’t just “give gifts”. We give gifts to a person. We give gifts to a particular person.   Likewise, we don’t just develop a product.  We develop a product for a person. We develop a product for a particular type of person/customer.
Knowing my nephew’s size & personality, I matched the piano to his size, his level of interaction with things, and what I knew about his level of engagement, i.e. I knew that he liked to do things the way adults do them.  When he came to my house, he wanted to sit on the piano bench next to me. I knew it had to be sturdy because he likes to climb on things and would probably try to do something with or on the piano.
But I also knew his parents were part of the “customer” or user as they would have the pleasure of listening to the piano as much as he played it and that they might have requirements about the sound and volume of the piano. So I talked with them about what they felt might work the best, not be a nuisance etc…
To break this down further, take a look at the similarities grid below to view-side by side-how the customer, constraints, tasks and requirements of gift giving are similar to the customer, constraints, tasks and requirements of any product we develop: Similarities Grid.

Truth be told, though we are rarely conscious of it, we are all engaged in user-centered gift giving. We do it naturally.  It’s instinct. Because, when we get right down to it, we want the person to be satisfied-DELIGHTED-with the gift, right? 

Likewise, we instinctively want to create product that matches our customers as well. User-centered design just gives us tools to do that in a more conscious and intentional fashion. The tools of user-centered design help us to collect, process, and then construct or revise product based on what we are learning. Further, it helps us to understand more holistically, not just WHAT our customers are teaching, but HOW they are teaching, the process they are using and the steps and the path they are taking to reach their goal.

When we understand the path our customers are taking, we can be sure to develop and structure the content to reflect that path, design the interior to visually convey that path and market and sell the points on that path that our products address.



Click on the link below to see a short clip of Iveagh on his pint size piano.


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