Artist’s rendering of the ivory-billed woodpecker
Currently believed to be extinct, the bird now commands the attention of ornithologists and birders from around the world.2 In 2009, The Nature Conservancy, an international conservation organization, posted information about a $50,000 reward3 for anyone who could verify the existence of a live ivory-billed woodpecker. Although incontrovertible evidence of the species was last recorded in 1938, finding a live specimen still captures people’s hearts and imaginations . Several researchers have pursued the woodpecker for decades.
Universities, academic researchers, and impassioned amateurs heatedly debate the existence of the bird.4 Naturalists claim to have recorded its signature sound, a loud double tap. Skeptics denounce the evidence. Counterarguments abound, but the controversial bird remains elusive.
An ivory-billed woodpecker symbolizes many things to many people: a reward, a pursuit, a cause. Where one person looks at the bird and only sees the $50,000 reward, another sees a lifelong pursuit, and yet another sees a once pristine wilderness overtaken by highways and suburban sprawl. Yet, all the while, the bird is just a bird . We make it something different: we transform it into an idea.
Idea Containers
You may think of products as being things such as toasters , iPhones, and Boeing 777s, but each is simply a container for an idea. We place our expectations, beliefs, and biases in these containers and give them a name, be it a bathtub or a button, a desktop application or a health club membership—or even an ivory-billed woodpecker. Just as a bird is just a bird , a product is just a product. We transform it into an idea.
Intrinsic and extrinsic cues shape our understanding of products . You see the clarity of an HD television screen , taste the sweetness of a Rainer cherry, smell the crisp scent of a new car’s interior, feel the silky texture of a new sweater, and hear the faint click of a keyboard’s keystroke. We recognize extrinsic cues, too, such as a product’s packaging and where the product is sold. We weigh all this evidence and issue a verdict: worthy or unworthy.
Applications face the same trials. An application is a product, but so are its parts. Tools and utilities within an application are products. Each was created with a purpose. Its purpose may be to provide an app’s settings, a game’s leaderboards, or a website’s shopping cart . We evaluate each: “Is this thing worth my time?”
Users are selfish with their time. They will not read, visit, or interact with anything they perceive to be unworthy . People engage with only an idea of a product: this dress makes me pretty; this fruit juice improves my health; this app decreases my workload. But, if people think the idea is not worth their time, it never takes hold and the container remains empty.
Filling the Container
Theodore Levitt, an American economist and Harvard professor, popularized the saying “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.”5 It is a witty aphorism about features and benefits. People use software because of the benefits it provides—not the features it offers. The benefits of an application are not always immediately apparent. You can stare at your computer , tablet, or phone all day and still have no idea if the applications contained within the device have benefits. Benefits of software are realized only through use.
So, how do we create products that will be used?
A core product is the benefit of a product’s use. Again, we will use a broad definition of the term “product” to mean a container for any idea. The core product of a weather app is the benefit of knowing how to dress today.
An actual product is the product itself. The actual product of a weather app is the assortment of pixels and code that together comprise the application.
An augmented product is the collection of related intangibles that add value to a product, such as customer service and technical support. The augmented product of a mobile app might include an online forum that addresses customer requests .
These descriptions of core, actual, and augmented products is marketing 101; however, these concepts have an immense impact on the creation of successful user experiences. As with many issues pertaining to marketing, we must separate the useful from the snake oil.
Applying the Framework
Imagine a heated debate taking place in your office. You and your team argue the merits of a website’s contact form.
What is the core product of a contact form? (Remember: the core product is the product’s benefit.) Is the core product the ability to enter contact information? Nope, not even close. Is the core product the ability to say something? Getting warmer. Is the core product the ability to receive a reply? Bingo! Users do not wish to supply their contact information arbitrarily. They expect an answer.
What is the actual product of a contact form? It is the design , copywriting, and underlying code.
What is the augmented product of a contact form? The website could automatically reply to the form submission with a brief thank-you email, containing an estimated time for a response. This email might show common FAQ questions related to the inquiry. Perhaps we ask the users to visit an online help forum. There are dozens of ways to augment a dull contact form.
Apply this framework of “Core, Actual, Augmented” to each piece of application functionality and watch it fill with ideas. Though this approach is “old-school” marketing , it is one of the more successful user experience design techniques available today.
Although creating a brilliant product is no small effort, it is only the first step. New products enter a marketplace saturated with good ideas. To soar above the rest, we must differentiate.
Differentiation
The German word “mittelstand” translates into English as “middle estate”: not high , not low, but somewhere in the middle. It sits between the aristocracy and the lower classes . Mittelstand companies sit in the middle, as well: they are not multinational corporations, nor are they tiny shops, but they are highly specialized, small- and medium-sized companies. They form the backbone of the German economy, employing 60 percent of all workers.6 Yet, despite these companies being collectively the largest segment of the economy, an individual mittelstand company is remarkably specialized, sometimes providing only one machine part to the global market—sometimes literally a cog in a wheel. They make one thing . Mittelstand companies differentiate themselves by making that one thing extremely well.
What can we learn from mittelstand companies? When we limit, we focus. When we focus on an experience , we are given the opportunity to design it extremely well.
Take, for example, the rather unsexy business of catching flies. The German company Aeroxon has been doing it for over 100 years. Theodor Kaiser, a German sweets manufacturer, founded the brand in 1909.7 One can appreciate the need to catch flies in a candy factory. The company began with a single product: a fly catcher. They continually improved upon it, eventually creating a near-perfect fly catcher made of sticky taped , ribboned paper. By 1930, 130 million of these devices were being sold worldwide. They were not pretty, but they saved lives.
Before the widespread availability of penicillin, a fly catcher was your best defense against a host of afflictions , including diphtheria, typhoid, and cholera. You might look at the device as it hangs encrusted with flies on a sunny windowsill and say, “Ewww,” but at least you would be alive. And in the century that has since passed, in the two world wars that followed, in the countless ups and downs in the economy that took place, Aeroxon still catches flies. They do one thing. They do it extremely well. It is the leading brand of household bug traps and insecticides in Germany.
The mittelstand approach works for software , too. Doing one thing well gives us focus. Through focus, we differentiate.
Apple’s App Store8 and Google Play9 now contain over two million apps each. Every year, developers release tens of thousands of other applications, ranging from Windows Phone to Blackberry, from desktop applications to embedded systems. You compete with everything, and that everything grows every day. Only the differentiated survive .
Twitterrific’s iOS app allows for quick replies and messages via swipe gestures10
The distraction-free , full screen composition mode of Literature & Latte’s Scrivener 311
The elegant and sparse visual design of Realmac’s Clear differentiates the app against a slew of competitors12
Like a mittelstand company , whatever experience you create—one or a thousand—you need to design each extremely well . For any experience can distract if not handled with care. Focus on what users truly need and remove all else. Doing so distinguishes your product from your competition. Do anything short of that and you are simply swatting at flies.
Key Takeaways
A product is merely an idea container .
Intrinsic and extrinsic cues shape our understanding of products.
Users will not read, visit, or interact with anything they perceive to be unworthy of their time.
A core product is the benefit of a product’s use.
An actual product is the product itself.
An augmented product is the collection of related intangibles that add value to a product, such as customer service.
Great products do one thing extremely well.
Questions to Ask Yourself
What are the product’s intrinsic and extrinsic cues ?
What benefits do people derive from using the product?
What are the product’s benefits not related to use (e.g., great customer service)?
What one thing does the product do better than its competitors?