What is obvious? You may think your app design and content are exactly that; obvious. It’s usually not.
Everything about your app became more obvious, once you know what the target users answers.
But until you have got feedback from the target users, it’s in the best case a qualified guess.
Designing the obvious is about including target users in both the strategic planning, MVP focused prototyping and BETA development process.
It’s the process of establishing an external iterative feedback loop designed for user-centric innovation management and user-driven app development.
It’s less about guessing or asking friends, family and fools (The 3 Fs). They will never be totally neutral, they want you to succeed:
It’s about identifying and start designing what features that are obvious providing excellent value for the customers and end-users.
Think first, build later. It’s difficult to think exactly like your target users; ask them!
The Value-Centric concept development is a process of ideation and creativity.
Early concept-testing by target customers and users is crucial to enhance the later process of prototyping and refining your strategies.
Early external evaluation of prototypes give sound insights before building your BETA version.
This way it’s possible to get early Proof-Of-Concept validation before using time and money on actual MVP focused app development.
User-centric innovations and user-driven feature planning are combined powerful tools.
Here are some core app planning aspects of user value and UI & UX quality to explore and assess:
After launch, stick to your app vision, purpose and unique value propositions, that worked to get the users hooked in the first place.
Another best practice for app development is to design personas, to learn about target users as a process to pursue designing the obvious. What are personas?
A Persona is a representation of a user, typically based off user research and incorporating user goals, needs, and interests.
Cooper categorizes personas into three types. Each has its own pros and cons.
Marketing Personas focus on demographic information, buying motivations and concerns, shopping or buying preferences, branding & marketing message, media habits and such.
They are typically described as a range (I.e.: 24 to 35 years old, live in Norway, EU or USA), and explain customer behavior but do not get to the why behind it.
Marketing personas are good for determining what types of customers will be receptive to certain products or messages, or for evaluating potential ROI of a product.
What they are not good for is for defining a product or service, what it is, how it will work, and how it will be used; or for prioritizing features in a product or service.
Proto-personas are used when there is no money or time to create true research based personas.
Proto-Personas are based on secondary research and the team’s educated guess of who they should be designing for.
According to Cooper, using a proto-persona to drive design decisions is still better than having no persona at all, though of course they should be validated with research!
Design Personas focus on user goals (and UX objectives), current behavior,
and pain points as opposed to their buying or media preferences and behaviors.
They are based on field research (I.e. Interviews or web surveys) and real people.
They tell a story and describe why people do what they do in attempt to help everyone involved in designing and building, pursue the obvious.
Design Personas are good for communicating research insights and user goals, understanding and focusing on certain types of users, and avoiding the self-referential design.
Templates are provided to streamline the process of designing the obvious including personas development and feature prioritization.
The results of the excercise will empower your app Feature Plan and Action Plan.
Learn more app startup tips.
Check out the next app startup course!