A Letter To All Founders/Product Owners

Dear Founder/Product Owner,

What was the last question you asked your [customers/users/stakeholders]? Do you remember? Let me guess. You were going to reach out to them, but (select all that apply):

• your logo looks like crap
• your developers are too slow
• you’ve got to get an update to your investors
• you’re a “reference user” so it’s really a waste of time to ask anyone else because it’ll just confuse you.

STOP. Just stop right there.

If the above notions have ever entered that world conquering brain of yours then let me try and save you from making excuses, and a HUGE mistake. You need to ask questions. I know, you’ve heard that before, and maybe you’ve tried. When you first had this great idea you called some friends and asked them what they thought. Then you called your mom. You even went to a meetup and spoke to strangers. Let me guess; they were useless and they only told you what you already knew. This, you believe, taught you that the only person you need to ask is yourself and, maybe, your team. It’s your product, right?

Pfffft. Wrong!

Let’s take a step back for a second. In fact, let’s digress while I ruin a joke for you, did you ever hear the one about Carnegie Hall…

It’s an old, dusty, joke. The punchline relies on a contextual trick and when delivered with the right timing, provides the kind of misdirection that makes you think (and laugh… okay, maybe a very light chuckle?). See, the couple didn’t know anything about the musician so they couldn’t have known that this poor sap had just about enough of “glamorous people” for one day. They couldn’t have known that asking him how to get to Carnegie Hall was the moral equivalent of asking them what they thought of the Jones’ new Bentley. They asked a perfectly honest question and they got nothing for their efforts.

My point is not that we should analyze jokes, of course, but that we should think about the context in which we are asking questions before we ask them.

Now let’s return to your users, and the questions you ask them. It’s easy. Ask a question. Get an answer. Ask another question. Get another answer.

Want to get started on the right foot and start on the path that will lead to a better product? Here’s a surefire way to get started, start asking your users the following (read aloud as if you’re asking them right in front of you):

1. What are the actual steps you take when solving the problem my product helps you with?
2. What features do you use to accomplish the above steps?
3. How do you know when the task is successfully accomplished?

What’s happening above is that you’re asking three questions in three distinct areas of user experience.

1. Methodology
2. Technical/Tool Selection
3. Evaluation

This lets you understand whether the steps you are laying out for users are appropriate, whether the feature in itself is actually useful, and how they perceive a successful conclusion to the task they wanted to accomplish. Highlight your favorite question and leave the feedback you get from your users in your comments!