How to Simplify Product Design for User Satisfaction

When I started doing product design for Jugl, I thought I knew the golden rule - stay close to your users. But in early days of our product development, we gave demos and collected generic user feedback, from anyone willing to provide it. Despite good intentions, this method led to an overload of ideas for enhancing and incorporating new features. The pivotal moment occurred when we received valuable guidance from our advisors, accomplished entrepreneurs with success in various SaaS enterprises. The fact that tailoring the product to our core buyers would better serve their specific workflow and needs. This sparked an intense user research sprint focused specifically on the SME owners and associates who get the most value from our platform. The simplicity of what users asked for surprised me - and led us to streamline our offering. Today over 90% of our features come directly from user feedback curated from our core persona, and this has helped drastically improve our product. Staying vigilant to user needs is essential, but truly transformative insights come from users representative of your core target group. Master that, and unnecessary complexity gives way to intuitive products that users love. Have you ever taken the wrong feedback while building your product?

Need to design a new product? Start with Design Thinking. This is how I coach Fortune 500 companies to approach Design Thinking: //// 𝐂.𝐑.𝐄.𝐀.𝐓.𝐄. //// 🧠 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭: Start with a deep dive into your users’ world. Understand their needs, desires, and challenges. Seriously start here. Don’t start with technology. Don’t start with what the CEO tells you the problem is. 🔍 𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞: Pinpoint the core problem you're addressing. Your journey starts with knowing exactly where you want to go and where you currently are. 💡 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐞: Map out a range of creative solutions. No idea is too wild—this is where your innovation takes off. Live in the land of sticky notes (digital or physical) 🛠️ 𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞: Build your ideas into tangible, testable prototypes. This is your first waypoint. Live and breathe MVP. Have multiple in the pipeline. Multiple keeps you from holding onto one idea for too long. 🔄 Test: Gather feedback and refine. Adjust your course through iteration and user insights. When I say user insights, I mean user insights. Not the CEO’s insights. 📊 𝐄𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐞: Continuously assess and improve. Ensure your journey leads to a destination that exceeds expectations. You want to make an incredible product that wows your users? Under promise. Over deliver. #designthinking #productdesign

I was sitting in a bus yesterday and had a few product reflections. One of them being around the stop request which is often a cord you pull to signal you'd like to exit at the next stop. This stood out as other than the seats and transit card scanner, this might be one of the most utilized functions in the bus. And it is one of the most simplest to use. You pull the cord - that's it.  Also, pretty simplistic in design as even the bulkier component blends in with the entire design. When working on a product, you might receive a request to make a feature flashier or a workflow more sophisticated, but that's not always needed and can even lead to adoption issues.  So if you're stuck on this very problem, ask yourself... What can you simplify today to increase product usage?    Has the focus remained on the core functionality or the aesthetics assumed it needs to be functional? #ProductManagement #ProductDesign Image description: Picture taken within a bus of the bus stop cord. Trees and a street stop sign in background from the bus window view.