Three questions about users: Who are the users? Where do users come from? What does the user want to do?
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There are three ultimate questions in philosophy: Who are you? Where are you from Where are you going? (Of course, the security guard downstairs often asks this question as well) There are also three ultimate questions when making products: Who are the users? Where do users come from? What does the user want to do? "User" is a concept that can be real or imaginary. Because users are not independent individuals, but a combination of groups with both commonalities and differences. They are often not in front of us and cannot tell us directly what they want. When we talk about users, even though we use the same word, we may have completely different concepts in mind. Core users and peripheral users The users of Internet products are a group concept. When we face these users, we should not only see individuals, but groups with common characteristics. If all users of a product are considered as the complete set, with various groups as subsets, then the weights of different subsets will be different. Such differences are not only reflected in quantity, but also in the relationship between users and products, and in the user's influence and commercial value. The group that can truly have a decisive impact on the product and needs to be considered most in product design is called the core users. Explaining clearly the core users of your product is often the beginning of truly understanding the product and the starting point for decision-making. If someone asks you who your users are? "All mobile phone users" is obviously not a good answer. In reality, once the product is up and running, we will see all kinds of users. We can never meet the needs of everyone. When some people's needs are met, it is very likely that others are dissatisfied at the same time. The more something is loved by some people, the more it will be hated by others with the same intensity. In this case, what we should really prioritize is meeting the needs of our core users. When we face these users, we should not only see individuals, but also groups with common characteristics. Although individual users behave differently, people's behavior can be abstracted from a group perspective. We should serve the user community rather than consider individuals in isolation. We can never satisfy everyone. No matter what, there will always be people who like your product and people who don’t. From another perspective, there are always some people who are more important to the product, and their satisfaction will affect the success or failure of the entire product. Although some other users also participate and express their opinions, they are not necessarily the ones who need to be focused on at the current stage. These users who are crucial to the product at a certain stage are the core users. Core users are the backbone of the entire user group. Their use of the product drives the use of others, their satisfaction with the product affects the satisfaction of others, and their needs represent the needs of the entire user group. The number of core users may not be large, but they are crucial to the product. At any point in the product evolution, we do not have to "please" all users, but need to focus seriously on core users, maximize the experience for core users, and ultimately maximize the utility of the entire user group. Corresponding to core users are peripheral users, who may use the product occasionally and may have various demands. Sometimes, their needs may conflict with the needs of core users, and we need to make a trade-off. The result of trying to please everyone is that no one will be truly satisfied. If we often look at user feedback, we will find that no matter what we do, there will always be people who like it and people who are very dissatisfied. This is normal. We need to maximize the experience for our core user groups, and if trade-offs need to be made in the design, the core user groups need to be considered first. This does not mean that other groups must be abandoned, but first of all, it must be clear that core users are the most important. In between the core and peripheral users are the adaptive users. Adaptive users are often not so "clear-cut in their likes and dislikes". Most of the time, they are following and adapting. What is good for core users may also benefit them. If the core users are satisfied, the adaptive users will also be driven to the satisfied end. Conversely, if the core users are unhappy, the adaptive users will also be depressed. So, if we need to make a trade-off between conflicting demands, we must tip the scales in favor of core users. You must be able to clearly identify who are not core users, so that you can find the boundaries and circle out your real users. This requires understanding the peripheral users of the product, as well as users who will not use your product at all. When making a product, you always need to fight your own greed. You always hope to attract more users. However, the bigger the circle, the less clear the boundaries, and the harder it is to make the product run well. In fact, there is no need to be greedy, it’s just a different time point. The core and peripheral users of a product are changing over time, and will eventually expand. The core users of each product will be different. Even for the same product, the core users will be different at different stages. It is common that in the early stages of a product, core users tend to be more geeky or early adopters, and as the product evolves, users will become more and more "novice". The core users at different stages will affect the focus of product design. In the past instant messaging market, the core users of QQ and MSN were different. The latter was more inclined towards white-collar users. Of course, Microsoft did not make a good design for these core users. Later, YY Voice's core users were game players. Although most people might use team voice tools , all experiences prioritized the needs of game players. The early core users of Xiaomi's MIUI were enthusiasts, because if you were not an enthusiast, it would be a problem to flash the MIUI ROM. Core users of the community are also good examples. The community needs to balance the relationship between content producers (within 1%), content disseminators (within 10%), and content consumers (around 90%), as well as balance the needs of community members with different tones and backgrounds, which requires more consideration of core users. There are huge differences among the core users of Tianya, Baidu Tieba, and Zhihu. The core users within the community need to be taken seriously, which often affects the atmosphere and direction of the entire community. Different positioning of core users will directly determine the direction and resource allocation of products or services. Therefore, when we discuss users, we cannot talk about them in general terms, but should make decisions based on the needs of core users at the current point in time. Super Users and Novices A few years ago, I met a worried lady on the subway. She was holding a ringing smartphone and asked me how to answer the call. I helped her swipe horizontally across the screen and finally answered the call. Swiping horizontally to answer a call is a very simple thing for everyone, but a large number of ordinary users may not be aware of it. These users are technically "newbies" (this is not a derogatory term), so why do they need to know so much technological knowledge and skills? What they need is for us to provide them with simple products. Novice users have only a vague understanding of the product and are satisfied with just being sufficient for its use. If a thoughtful design happens to be in front of them, they will be very happy. However, if the function/interface requires more detours and more understanding and energy to access, they will not be motivated to try it unless the benefits are great enough. When the Wandoujia client was first launched on the computer, I saw a user feedback that said: "Your product has xxx problem, which may be due to xxx of the ADB connection." A super user is someone who understands so much "jargon". Super users are very knowledgeable about the product and are very enthusiastic and interested in exploring it. They hope to have more freedom and flexibility in using the product, put forward many requirements, and even discuss with us how to design the product. Here we need to carefully distinguish which ones are indeed problems and which ones are only unique to super users. Super users often have very different product usage behaviors from novice users. Unfortunately, when we design, we often use the perspective of super users instead of novice users (because we ourselves are often super users), making the functions seem more powerful and flexible, but also more complex. Good designers and product managers need to be able to quickly switch between super users and novice users, and constantly look at problems from the perspective of novice users: "I can understand this design, but can novice users understand it?" The needs of super users cannot be completely ignored, because they often have a great say and can create and spread word of mouth about the product. The final design is a balance that allows novice users to use the product smoothly, while super users can get what they want with a little effort. Angel User Among our users, there are some who are special. They will take the trouble to write a long email to give their feedback on the product; they will anxiously await the release of the new version and wait to taste the fruits of our labor; they will help us promote and help other users solve problems. They are our angel users.  How angelic are angel users? Take the example of Evernote. In 2008, Evernote faced serious financial problems and had only enough money to last for six weeks. Founder Phil Libin made the difficult decision at 3 a.m. to wake up and close the business the next morning. At this time, a user from Sweden sent an email saying that he liked Evernote very much, and asked, "Do you need money?" So they started chatting on Skype, and two weeks later, $500,000 was received, which helped Evernote overcome the difficulties (a CEO friend of mine specifically confirmed this with the founder of Evernote). Of course, don’t expect that all angel users are wealthy people or coal bosses. In many cases, word-of-mouth spread and sincere support and encouragement are priceless treasures. How to get angel users? The most fundamental thing is to really make a good product with heart, which is the foundation of user experience. On this basis, we also need to focus on extensive and in-depth interactions with users. The interface here does not just rely on the interface. I once saw something like this on Weibo: The new version of a certain App will load a lot of image resources. Users unknowingly consume a lot of data traffic on the 3G network, so they start to complain on their Weibo. This is indeed a bad experience, designed without taking the user's network situation into consideration. Afterwards, an interesting thing happened. The product manager of the App responded to the user on Weibo, apologized and said that the problem had been fixed in the next version. At the same time, in order to compensate the user's losses, she would be given a mobile phone recharge card worth several dozen yuan. The user was immediately surprised. She only had one or two hundred followers on Weibo, but the designer of this product actually communicated with her directly (obviously found her by searching for keywords on Weibo). This experience will immediately greatly enhance user loyalty, and word of mouth will spread to surrounding users, and angel users may be born in this way. A friend once wrote a few pages of documents and attached many screenshots to give suggestions for her favorite apps. She was looking forward to receiving a response from the other party, but unfortunately, after sending the email, no response came into the sea, which made her very disappointed. In fact, at this point, if there is just a little more interaction, she will be "locked in" and will recommend it to people around her with greater enthusiasm. Ultimately, if we can make those who truly support us gain a greater sense of belonging, identity, and self-realization, they may all become our angel users. User Evolution As products and the entire ecological environment develop, the core user group is also constantly changing. The early core users of a product may be very different from subsequent users. If you can’t keep up with changes in your user base, you won’t be able to maintain long-term, sustained user growth, and ensure the overall product tone as new users continue to pour in. Therefore, when we control our products, we need to be very sensitive to changes in the user base. For many products, early users tend to be more "geeky", more willing to try new things, and have higher skill levels. As the product life cycle progresses, new users tend to be more conservative, have higher requirements for learnability and ease of use, or in other words, tend to be more "novice" users. If we pay attention to user feedback as our products evolve, we will see this trend particularly clearly. Because of this, the user feedback we heard in the early days often contained a lot of overly "geeky" demands. Whether to meet these needs needs to be balanced based on the overall demand priorities and your own team resources. In the process of product evolution, we often need to take the initiative to grasp the rhythm of changes in the user base. Facebook is a good example: In its early days, Facebook was always in the university circle (even earlier, it was only in the Ivy League schools, and even earlier, it was only on the Harvard campus), and gradually opened up to the outside world. Zuckerberg, Moskovsky and others consciously controlled this pace. On the one hand, the pressure on the server (including financial pressure) is controllable; on the other hand, this also helps Facebook gradually form a good community environment and product rhythm, enabling smooth and stable growth when a large number of public users pour in. Sometimes a sudden influx of users may "drown" your product, especially those users that your product is not ready to receive. Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media advertising This article was compiled and published by @馬力由 ( Qinggua Media ). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting! |
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