This class will introduce the idea of a scientific approach to product development. We’ll focus on how to make sure we build products customers love, starting with how to frame hypotheses and perform user research.

1. i290 lean/agile product management
unit 3: user research
@jezhumble
https://leanagile.pm/
humble@berkeley.edu
This work © 2015-17 Jez Humble
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

2. be able to frame ideas in terms of hypotheses
understand purpose and problem as starting points
know what an MVP is and isn’t
understand variety of types of user research
know how to make proto-personas & empathy maps
learning outcomes

3. shareholder value
The directors of a public
corporation have a fiduciary
duty to maximize profits
—Jensen and Meckling, Theory of the Firm

4. SpaceX
“the company was founded in 2002 by
Elon Musk to revolutionize space
transportation and ultimately make it
possible for people to live on other
planets.”

5. Jack Andraka
His parents, he says, never really answered
any of the questions they had. Go figure it
out for yourself, they would say. “I got really
into the scientific method of developing a
hypothesis and testing it and getting a
result and going back to do it again.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2012/06/18/wait-did-this-15-year-old-from-maryland-just-change-cancer-treatment/

7. Janice Fraser

9. mvp bicycle / scooter
Henrik Kniberg | http://blog.crisp.se/2016/01/25/henrikkniberg/making-sense-of-mvp

10. incremental vs iterative
Jeff Patton | http://jpattonassociates.com/dont_know_what_i_want/

11. purpose

12. experts are what they do
“Given a representative task in the domain, a
badass performs in a superior way, more
reliably”
—Kathy Sierra, Badass

13. @jezhumble
personas
Target by Jasper Johns | http://www.flickr.com/photos/nostri-imago/3137422976/

15. empathy
http://conversionxl.com/creating-customer-personas-
using-data-driven-research/

16. Personas and empathy mapping
WHY WHAT HOW
• Make assumptions
and knowledge
about users explicit
• Give the team a
common language
to talk meaningfully
about users
• Building empathy
towards users in a
way that data can’t
accomplish
• Sketch out a
person, their needs,
and behavior
• Look into the mind
of the targeted
persona & think
about the sensory
experiences of the
character when
interacting with
your company and
product
• Work together in
your teams and
consider: Who are
your users and why
are they using the
system? What
behaviors,
assumptions, and
expectations color
their view of the
system?
FURTHER READING
http://www.innovationgames.com/empathy-map/ | Adlin, T., & Pruitt, J. (2010). The Essential
Persona Lifecycle | http://www.cooper.com/journal/2014/05/persona-empathy-mapping

17. proto-personas
1. Sketch and Name
2. Behavioral
Demographic
Information
3. Pain Points and
Needs
4. Potential Solutions

19. exercise
1. Choose someone in the team to pitch an idea (1m)
2. That person pitches and does Q&A (2m)
3. Everyone on the team creates a proto-persona (3m)
4. Stick proto-personas onto your board and de-dupe (3m)
5. Dot-vote to choose 1, and refine as a group (5m)
6. Present problem and personas to group (1m each)
1. Sketch and Name
2. Behavioral
Demographic
Information
3. Pain Points and
Needs
4. Potential Solutions

20. empathy map
Business Model - The Empathy Map
Designed for: Designed by:
Customer Perspective:
What does she
THINK and FEEL?what really counts
major preoccupations
worries & aspirations
What does she
SEE?environment
friends
what the markets offers
What does she
HEAR?what friends say
what boss says
what influences say
What does she
SAY and DO ?attitude in public
appearance
behavior towards others
GAIN
“wants”/needs, measures of success, obstacles
PAIN
fears, frustrations, obstacles
Date:
Interation:
Adapted from XPLANE. XPlane.com
www.XPLANE.com

21. value proposition canvas
WHY WHAT HOW
• Identify the factors
that are critical to
achieve product/
market fit.
• The Value
Proposition Canvas
makes explicit how
you are creating
value for your
customers by
helping you to
design products
and services your
customers want.
• A collaborative
exercise where we
brainstorm both the
value proposition
and the customer
segments in order
to explore their fit.
FURTHER READING
http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/ (to download canvas)
The Value Proposition Explained (video), https://youtu.be/aN36EcTE54Q

22. value proposition canvas

23. business model canvas
WHY WHAT HOW
• Rapidly iterate
through possible
business model
ideas and identify
key assumptions
• Create a shared
understanding of
the business model
among
stakeholders
• Identify the key
characteristics of
your business
model on a single
page.
• A short,
collaborative
brainstorming
exercise involving
stakeholders from
every function
taking no more than
30 minutes
FURTHER READING
http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/ (to download canvas)
The Business Model Canvas in 2 minutes (video) https://youtu.be/QoAOzMTLP5s

24. business model canvas

25. business assumptions worksheet
Business assumptions
• I believe my customers have a need to _____.
• These needs can be solved with _____.
• My initial customers are (or will be) _____.
• The #1 value a customer wants to get out of
my service is _____.
• The customer can also get these additional
benefits: _____.
• I will acquire the majority of my customers
through _____.
• I will make money by _____.
• My primary competition in the market will be
_____.
• We will beat them due to _____.
• My biggest product risk is _____.
• We will solve this through _____.
• What other assumptions do we have that, if
proven false, will cause out business/product
to fail? _____
User assumptions
• Who is the user?
• Where does our product fit in their work or
life?
• What problems does our product solve?
• When and how is our product used?
• What features are important?
• How should our product look and behave?
Jeff Gothelf, Lean UX, p21

26. @jezhumble
Jack Andraka
“Make sure to be passionate
about whatever it is you get into,
because otherwise you won’t put
the right amount of work into it.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2012/06/18/wait-did-this-15-year-old-from-maryland-just-change-cancer-treatment/

27. further reading
Jeff Gothelf with Josh Seiden, Lean UX
usability.gov website
Kathy Sierra, Badass: Making Users Awesome
Lindsay Ratcliffe & Marc McNeill, Agile User Experience Design
Osterwalder et al, Value Proposition Design and Business Model
Generation