Building stuff? Focus on user experience no matter what!
A younger me used to say “To give is to take”, that phrase fits perfectly in the context of this post. Keep reading to see how.
Who builds experiences? And who is the user after all?
Reader, rest assured that this post is for you; so long as you interact with people for your work. Are you a teacher interacting with your class? Are you a Designer, Engineer, or Product person building a Saas service for some people? Are you a Customer Success manager, or an Account Executive catering relations with a person? Are you owning a restaurant serving your plates to customers?
Everything shared below fits every context and department you might be working on. There are some examples shared from the digital and tech space. I’m sure you can replace them with examples from everyday life!
The four levels of user experience
No matter what you build keep your mind on how the user will experience it! Focus your effort on building the right experience for that user. Never rush to the part you ask for people’s money! In fact, don’t mention it at all!
There are 4 levels of user engagement you can strive for. All focus on what the user can get out of experiencing an offering.
1. People will only care if they will gain something
At this point, people are looking for something of interest, an answer, or something captivating. Their goal at this point is to get what they want, what they look for.
Stackoverflow falls into this category, as does Google search. In both cases — which I’m sure you’ve experienced — you are looking for something specific. You can easily navigate to the page holding what you look for; copy/paste the snippet of interest and leave. That’s it. Your investment ends there.
The page visit numbers for StackOverflow show just that. A snapshot from November 2022 shows that 275 million pages were viewed, with an average duration of 7 minutes and 2,5 pages viewed per visit! That’s huge!
2. People will only invest time if what they gain is big
At this level of experience, the user needs to take one more action. Put the effort into sharing something on their side.
Stackoverflow is an example here as well. I’m sure that way fewer of you have seen Stackoverflow’s homepage. That is because we all reach that site when looking for something specific through a search engine and not through the homepage!
Moreover, how many of you actually have a Stackoverflow account? This requires an investment larger than copying/pasting an answer, or typing a question on Google. Naive research I’ve done for November 2022 shows that Stackoverflow counts 18 million accounts. 15 million of which have engaged with the platform since 2008 to have some reputation or badge. 1.26 million of which were active in 2023! Impressive numbers, yet cannot compare with the 275 million pageviews just in November!
Asking and answering questions is a way bigger investment than copying/pasting. People need to invest more time to become users. Your offering needs to be extra convincing for people to make that effort.
3. People will only pay you if they can’t find the value they get, somewhere else cheaper (or free)
Moving one level higher, we have the conversion from users to customers. To make that jump your offering must be that unique and valuable to convince people into making an extra investment. Now we’re talking about money.
Joining Hack The Box I was mindblown by the offering! It is a very cool and unique offer of great quality that people buy into! The content quality is really unique and the content volume is great.
People playing on Hack The Box see the value offering and opt-in for purchase to get access to more of that high-quality content.
4. People will pay a lot if they’re blown away by the experience they get
At this level, we are talking about customers that become loyal. The experience offered is so mind-bending that price comes second. Customers are so used to the experience that will do anything to keep it.
Apple’s iPhone is a great example of this level of experience. We’ve all heard the “kidney for iPhone” and “same as 13 but 4 cameras” jokes. We’ve all packed to buy it.
The experience that an iPhone offers is so captivating and superior that has created a loyal, expanding user base. People are no more hindered by the pricey offering, as they are purchasing that superior experience.
Again, crunching the numbers we see that sales volume for iPhone is increasing by a lot! Moving from 187.2 million units in 2019 to 242 million units in 2021!
Build awesome experiences and growth will follow!
This title summarizes the conclusion. If you and your team focus solely on building an awesome experience growth will follow.
Even if you are starting just now, you need to conquer the first level, don’t be afraid to give to your users before you get something out of it!
No matter your field or industry, the competition is big out here! The more you lean in to understand and facilitate your users, the more you benefit too!
This post is the first in a series, inspired by my product management experience and my current job at Hack The Box. The whole series of approximately 5 posts was a lightning talk to the whole HTB team💚!
Here are all posts from the series:
