Struggle or Pleasure

In the early 1980s, Noriaki Kano, professor emeritus at Tokyo University, developed a model to understand and communicate customer satisfaction . The model diagrams what we all intuitively understand, yet can never quite communicate: the value of a feature is not subjective.

Kano first used the model to describe customer satisfaction with table clocks and TV sets. Although he was not likely thinking of Tom Hanks’ future film role at the time, Kano’s model serves equally as well to describe the value of items on our castaway’s island.

Imagine for a moment that you wish to design an island. You can provision it with a limited number of features, ranging from coconuts to satellite phones. What would you choose?

Basic features, such as food, water, and shelter, make an experience survivable. High-performance features, such as good weather, make an experience manageable. Delightful features, such as satellite phones, make an experience pleasurable. After all, what castaway would not want access to a satellite phone?

Unlike island castaways, if software users’ needs are not being met, they can swim away from our island and go to someone else’s. Abandonment and defection are always options.

So, the question becomes which basic, high-performance, or delightful features turn a struggle into a pleasure?

Kano’s model shows the relationship between a user’s satisfaction and the effort needed to achieve it (see Figure 41-1). This relationship is frequently represented on two axes: satisfaction on the y-axis, effort on the x-axis.

Let us create a model to show the satisfaction with the ice skates (see Figure 41-2). We will first need to understand how they will be used. If Tom Hanks’ character used the ice skates for ice skating, they would not hold much value. Firstly, it would take a huge effort for a single man to construct an ice skating rink on a tropical island. Secondly, ice skating is an enjoyable activity, but it offers little satisfaction to a thirsty and hungry castaway.

But when we change the activity from ice skating to opening coconuts, we arrive at a different model (see Figure 41-3). Using the ice skate to open a coconut requires little effort; an ice skate can easily be fashioned into an axe by holding it upside down and slamming it into an object—it is a perfect tool for opening coconuts. Considering that a castaway must drink fresh water and eat food to survive, we can safely assume that the coconut water and flesh would provide a lot of satisfaction.

Achieving delight requires more than a fully implemented, basic feature . Your island many contain a comfortable cave. You can dress it up with palm leaves, paint pictures on its walls, maybe even eventually call it home. But a comfortable cave is still a cave. Basic features rarely delight.

Achieving delight requires more than a high-performing feature. The best weather in the world only amounts to so much satisfaction when you are a castaway. Regardless of how many bright, sunny days you experience, you are still stuck on an island.

As Kano demonstrated, achieving delight is a matter of building fully implemented, high-performing features (see Figure 41-4). What would delight a visitor to the island you designed: a tall ladder to harvest coconuts; a feather mattress for the cave; or a picnic lunch to greet a castaway?

Delightful Becomes Expected Over Time

Familiarity does not breed contempt as much as it erodes it. Delight suffers the same affliction. Over time, once delightful features degrade into basic ones (see Figure 41-5). Luckily, not many of us will ever become a castaway. But, if becoming one were an everyday occurrence, we would demand more than an island’s basic features. We would insist on beautiful, warm weather. We might even come to expect a picnic lunch awaiting us on the shore.

Kano addressed this erosion of delight by showing that delightful features become basic features over time. The “delight” curve dips downward and continues its descent day-by-day. Maintaining delight is a continuous effort. Many of the new websites and apps we see today will stagnate in a matter of months, if not weeks. We must continually innovate because our perception of delight is as fluid as any ocean. And, as our famous castaway once said, “Tomorrow the sun will rise; who knows what the tide will bring in.”

Key Takeaways

Questions to Ask Yourself