Lesson 4 is about MVP and features prioritization.
- MVP (minimum viable product)
As the picture above shows, MVP is a product, a useful product, a simplest useful product which has met user needs.
There are also lots of articles say that MVP is not a product, it is a process. I think MVP is not only a product, but also a process or a mindset. And the “product” here is not always a real thing that can be used, it can be a demo, even a picture on paper, as long as they can deliver your idea to user. The “process” here is easy to understand. It refers to the process to verify your hypothesis, and the “process” will be repeated and iterated.
So far, it is not hard to understand, but it is difficult to define the range of a MVP, or what should be in MVP?
2. Feature prioritination
It is a process to sort the features, determine what the first priorities are. The methods can be used are Feature Priority Matrix and Feature Buckets. They are easy to understand in theory, but in practice it is NOT easy to decide which feature belong to where. There should be much more discuss and negotiation. I think the key to determine which belongs to where is the understanding of user needs. Only if we understand user’s need properly, we will know which features should be done as soon as possible, which features are rubbish.
3. User scenario and user story
How to translate user goals into features? The answer is using user scenario and user story.
User scenario is a detailed description of what users do with the product and more importantly why they do it. User scenarios outline the motivation and the main goal of the user for visiting your website or using your product.
A perfect user scenario comes in a way of a short story that clearly defines the context in which the product is used. It gives answer to such important questions as: Who is the users of our product? What does this user want to accomplish with our product? How is this user going to achieve her goals? Why does this user choose our product over other available options?
It is best to keep the user scenarios as close to reality as possible, using the expressions and wording a typical user would speak.
A user story is a brief description of the user and her core need.
Here’s an example.
“As a frequent movie goer, I want to have all the information about the upcoming premiers in our local theaters in my smartphone, so that I don’t have to check their websites one by one.”
So to summarize, user stories should have three main characteristics:
- they are short, but descriptive. User stories do not capture every detail about the user, her background, her ideas and motivations. Instead, they give an immediate understanding of what we are trying to accomplish with our product.
- user stories define the user type. For instance in the sample user story mentioned above, we can clearly identify the user as a “frequent movie goer”. Note that we do not dive deeper into her personality, but just focus on the character traits relating to our product usage.
- user stories outline the main need or problem that our product should solve. In our example, it is defined as “have all the information…in my smartphone”.
4. Reflection
This lesson’s purpose is to find your product feature list. The tools are user story and user scenario.
My project is an APP which help people check when the bus/train comes.
User scenario:
Every morning, Zanub waits the bus at bus stop with her twins, she cannot let her kids or herself late. She needs to know when the bus will come, so she can decide that whether she should wait for the bus or take a taxi.
User stories:
As a user, I want to use my smartphone to check when the next bus will come, so I can decide whether I wait or not.
As a user, I want to be notified as soon as possible when the next bus delayed, so I won’t waste time to wait.
Feature list:
Note:
- user scenario and user story quote from: https://designmodo.com/user-stories-ux/
