How to design irresistible experiences
Plus an invitation for you.
Happy Saturday! 👋
I hope you’ve got stellar plans for the weekend.
This is a quick bonus. A shallow dive, if you will.
Plus, I want to invite you to an upcoming event.
But first, I want to share a secret of product design:
Product design is all about the experience.
This is probably feels self-explanatory, but it’s a lot deeper than you might think.
You might be tempted to conclude customer experience about UI and UX, but it’s not — at least not entirely.
If you’re running a business with any technical component — even just a marketing website for a service business — there’s no escaping the need for a good user interface and technical experience. Duh!
But the tech is, at most, only one component of what contributes to customer experience.
Ditto for customer service experience, and any other experience.
Broadly:
Customer experience is the feeling customers get when they interact with your product across the entire lifecycle:
They’re experiencing your brand every step of the way:
when they become aware of you;
while they’re evaluating you;
during the purchase;
when the product is delivered;
while they’re getting support;
etc.
Experience is everywhere, because it’s just a feeling!
We have many kinds of experiences when we interact with companies:
Some are good — we feel comforted or supported or delighted.
Others are very much not — we feel confused, frustrated, or stuck.
We form these impressions early in the process, and they are reinforced (and, rarely, debunked) as our relationship with the product deepens.
We notice when our experience is disjointed or inconsistent, and we internalise these experiences as confusion at best, and “meh” at worst.
And “meh” kills companies.
But when the experience works, it’s amazing! We get the experience we hoped for — and more:
We’re pleasantly surprised.
We’re eager to engage.
We tell our friends about it.
To triple-underline this point: there is no greater predictor of massive success for a startup than the experience of its customers; it all starts there.
But while eliciting these kinds of experiences is predictable, creating them is emphatically not self-explanatory, because:
You can’t design an experience — you design for it.
The way to design a winning product — the kinds that have customers beating down your doors to get — is to consider all six components of customer experience:
Actors: Who are the people and what are the systems inside and outside the company with whom the customer will interact?
Needs: What is the customer buying? What are their jobs-to-be-done?
Experience: How do we want to the customer to feel during their journey with us?
Product: What is the solution you’re offering to the customer?
Touchpoints: What are all the mechanisms by which you’re going to communicate?
Evidence: What do you leave behind when the job is done?
We have to design products and services with the desired customer experience in mind, create symmetry inside and outside the company to reflect that experience, and design every interaction with the customer to foster that experience.
The above is actually a systematic process you can follow:
Who is the customer? What are their wants, needs, and fears?
What is the specific need of that customer we are addressing in our product?
What experience can we design for that will resonate powerfully with that customer’s wants and fears?
What does a product that satisfies the need, and delivers the promised experience, look like? What’s the solution?
What are all of the ways we should be communicating with customers? What are all of the ways we shouldn’t be?
What evidence can we leave behind as a reminder of that experience (invoices, emails, physical goods, etc)?
And that’s it… followed by experimentation and validation, of course!
If you’re right, your customers will be your biggest fans, because you designed a product that didn’t just meet their need, but resonated with them deeply — often even profoundly.
In every way they experienced your product, they touched the brand, and they felt the way you promised.
If you don’t have it yet, pivot until you nail it.
Remember: “meh” kills companies.
Ready to dive deeper?
On January 17th, I’m co-hosting a 90-minute masterclass on how to design products that get customers to beat down your door. It’s called The Startup Product Playbook.
And experience design is only one part of the playbook we discuss.
PS: Before I go, here are some other things to keep on your radar…
Are you the founder of a seed-stage company?
On February 15th, I’m partnering with StartupSac to facilitate a Founder Mastermind. It’s a 3-month intensive program with some of the Sacramento region’s leading experts in startup growth and fundraising. The cohort size is limited to just 10 (!) highly dedicated startup founders.
Applications due Jan 31st.
Just getting started with startups?
On March 1st, I’m facilitating a competition just for you! The Startup Challenge is a crazy-fun, high-energy competition where you get in a room with creative people for an entire weekend, and experience what it’s like to launch a startup with but an idea and your wits — by actually doing it. In just 48 hours.
This competition is open to everyone. No prior experience needed!