An article in today’s NY Times got me thinking. The article discussed how some school districts across the country are prohibiting Halloween costumes that are considered scary, offensive, or gross. One line in the article really caught my attention, “In a school district in Illinois, students are being encouraged to dress up as historical characters or delicious food items rather than vampires or zombies.” What? Really?
I can’t imagine there are many kids that would willingly choose to dress up as historical characters or delicious food items. Where’s the fun in hanging out with other kids dressed as a history lesson? Nothing creates a bland experience like ensuring that you don’t offend or alienate anyone.
So, where’s the connection to website or software development? Well, just imagine you’re building a product that could potentially serve thousands, or hopefully, millions of people. The product will be a perfect match for some. Others may be alienated in some way – the product is too difficult for newbies, or too simplistic for power users. It might seem too stuffy for a young audience or unprofessional-looking to a more traditional user. When you aim to turn on some users, others are going to be turned off. That’s fine – it’s called targeting.
So Tip #1 is: Alienate some people.
The problem occurs when product teams don’t understand their audience.
Tip #2: Make sure you know who you’re alienating.
Even if usage of your product is growing, you can be assured that some users are fully engaged and others are barely hanging on. Through user segmentation and user experience research you can understand if you’re meeting the needs of the right people. For example, without the appropriate level of research it may be too late before you find out that your product is the perfect match for a light user but not a profitable, heavy user. So, when you hear compliments or complaints from users, be sure to view them with the appropriate filter. You don’t want your product to look like a historical character or delicious food item to your core target market when your competitors are making cool vampires and zombies.
Tags: segmentation, targeting