Why is no one using your new feature?

Before deciding to launch a new feature, you need to think clearly about why you want to create the new feature.

Huang Ruo, the former COO of Dangdang.com, once recounted a case in which Dangdang.com's CEO Li Guoqing sent him a text message saying that they wanted to expand the clothing category and asked him to recruit 100 people. Huang Ruo said that his way of dealing with the situation at the time was to pretend that he had not seen the text message. He admitted that this was indeed not a good approach, but he still chose to do so. If Li Guoqing did not contact him later, the matter would end there. If he contacted him two or three times, then they would need to have a good talk.

Huang Ruo said that he did this because he felt that as a COO, his responsibility was first to determine whether to do something, and then how to do it. If he did whatever the CEO said, then he would be just the CEO's assistant. The case is over. A COO certainly has the authority to do this, and if it is just an assistant, then it is more about execution.

When your boss tells you one day that we are going to launch several XX functions, you will wonder in your heart why we are going to launch these functions, what needs of users do these functions meet, how many users have such needs, and what benefits will it bring to users after they are launched. You just keep muttering to yourself. Finally, the functions were launched as scheduled, and the boss was quite satisfied. However, when you looked at the background data, you found that the proportion of users using these new functions was pitifully small, only 1.X% and 2.X%. What would you think?

In fact, it is sad to see these data. After all, it is something that takes a lot of people’s time and energy to do. When you find out that no one uses or cares about the things you have done, you will feel that what you have done is worthless.

But from a user's perspective, if what you give is not what I want at all, then I will definitely not buy it. For example, I like eating apples very much, and you happily send me a basket of pears, and you think I should be very touched to accept it, but the actual situation may be that I just want to eat an apple...

A product should never be just a simple addition of functions. If a product is just a simple addition of functions, it is impossible to achieve 1+1>2, and even 1+1=2 may not be possible.

When more functions are added, the user's main task flow may be weakened. If the product positioning or design goal is a compass, then the functional points in the requirements are scattered coordinates, and the task flow is the roadmap through these coordinates.

The more coordinates there are, the more complex the user's task flow roadmap is likely to be, and more complexity means more prone to errors. If users get lost in their tasks and cannot complete them efficiently, quickly and accurately, they will most likely not come back, unless the switching cost is too high or there are no other alternative products.

When adding a new function, the first thing you need to do is to consider why you want to add it and what purpose you want to achieve through the new function. The second thing to do is to consider how to add it, and you need to determine how to measure whether the function has achieved the expected effect after adding it.

About me: Wang Jiachen, a product enthusiast who likes tennis and cycling. I have a public account ( Product Manager from 0 to 1). I write something on the public account every week. You are welcome to follow me and ask for my advice, sharing and communication. I am currently working on the product development journey. It is a long journey and I encourage you all.

1. Why do we need to do it?

When we decide to add a new feature, we need to first think clearly about why we want to add such a feature, where the demand for this feature comes from, whether it comes from users, from the team, from competitors, or spontaneous demand of the product, what purpose do we want to achieve by adding such a feature, both for users and for ourselves, how difficult it is to implement technically, what is the input-output ratio, and first determine whether it is worth doing.

1. User level

The reason why users use a product is because the product can help them achieve a certain goal, such as being useful or fun, completing certain tasks efficiently, or killing boring time. In order to achieve this goal, users will have some small tasks, and in order to complete these small tasks, users will further perform certain operations.

When adding a function, you need to consider it from the user's perspective, and deeply consider the user's goals, tasks, behaviors, usage scenarios, and expectations. Most demands without usage scenarios are false demands. When conducting user task analysis, you can take into account the frequency, importance, breadth, and time of functional requirements. That is, how many people have such needs, whether they are high frequency or low frequency, how users behave before their needs are met, and what happens after their needs are met.

2. Commercial level

When we add a new feature, what purpose do we want to achieve? Do we hope to boost certain data indicators, such as retention rate , conversion rate , activity, etc., or do we hope to meet some business needs through these new features?

The methods used to achieve different goals are definitely different. In addition, what users want may sometimes be different from what we want to give them. For example, users do not like advertisements, but advertisements can bring in revenue. In this case, it is necessary to strike a proper balance between user goals and business goals.

3. Technical level

For such a new function, how difficult is it to implement technically, how long is the R&D cycle, how many resources are required, and combined with the benefits to users and business, then consider how cost-effective it is and whether it is worth doing.

For example, if the current recommendation system can better meet the needs of personalized recommendations, then does it take a long time to make more accurate recommendations? These are all things that need to be compared and considered.

2. How to do it

After considering whether it is worth doing and whether to add new features, you can consider how to do it. When designing functions, you also need to consider it from the user's perspective, considering what my functions can help users do, rather than what great functions I want. Users don’t actually care what functions you have. Users are more concerned about what your functions can help them do.

1. Conform to the user’s psychological model

The product that users see is likely to be different from the product that designers see, and the way users use the product is likely to be different from what we imagine. One reason is that designers have much more professional knowledge and understanding of the product than ordinary users. The other reason is that designers are fully focused on using the product in a relatively stable space and network environment.

Can you imagine a scenario where a user is wearing high heels, carrying a full bag in one hand, holding a mobile phone in the other hand, and using the product in an unstable network environment?

The world that everyone sees is different. It is based on the real world and their own cognition. What users see is also based on psychological models, not reality models. Therefore, many products have some metaphors to better fit the user's psychological cognition. For example, the icon of the Recycle Bin in Windows is a trash can, and the icons of some camera software are all related to cameras, etc. These designs are to better fit the user's psychological model in order to reduce the user's learning cost.

2. The eternal middle user

Except for some products that are only for professional users, the users of most products can be simply divided into three types: novice users, intermediate users and expert users. Among these three types, the number of novice users and expert users is relatively small. Most of them are intermediate users who vote with their feet. They seldom say that a product is good or bad. They vote with actual actions. And the number of users in this part happens to be the largest.

When designing functions, it is necessary to comprehensively consider these three types of users. First, design for the majority of intermediate users. Second, ensure that novice users can quickly and seamlessly become intermediate users. Some functions or options can be hidden while ensuring that expert users can easily find them and without hindering intermediate users from becoming expert users.

3. The “0123” rule

The "0123" rule means that the design of a function should not require an instruction manual, and it should be understood at a glance, with a waiting time of no more than two seconds, and the operation steps should be controlled within three steps. In other words, don't make me think, don't make me wait, don't annoy me. Keep the operation process as simple as possible. As the page hierarchy goes deeper, the user's bounce rate will gradually increase.

3. How to measure

After going through so much hardship, the function is finally launched as scheduled. Is it time to end it? This is not the case. Launching a feature is just a new beginning. You need to tell your users what new features have been launched and what needs they can meet that could not be met before.

Internet products are always in Beta version. After a function is launched, if it can be quantified by data indicators, a quantitative evaluation will be carried out. If it cannot be quantified, it is necessary to communicate with users to see whether the function can meet expectations, and continuously optimize and improve the function based on user feedback and data indicators.

You can simply use such a formula to roughly measure the data performance of the function:

Importance of functional requirements = percentage of users using the function × percentage of times the function is used × percentage of category importance

The percentage of users using a function is the proportion of users who use the function, that is, the number of users/total number of users. The percentage of times a function is used reflects the frequency of use of the function, which is calculated by dividing the total number of times/number of people. The category importance percentage divides the types of functions according to different weights based on the Kano model. After obtaining quantified data indicators, we can compare the data before and after to determine whether the new function or function revision is successful.

The above is the main content of this article. To sum up, before deciding to launch a new function, you need to consider clearly why you want to develop a new function, and then how to do it, and formulate indicators that can be tested, follow up after the new function is launched, and continuously optimize and improve it.

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The author of this article @王家郴 is compiled and published by (APP Top Promotion). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!