PEOPLE AT THE HEART OF PRODUCTS

Our first Fundamental Session mainly focused on stepping back and critically understanding the real need of your product or the problem you are trying to solve for someone, your users. Alongside this identifying your customers and subsequently the brand, values and business models that underpin the products and services our startups are developing. You can hear some of our startups sharing their thoughts on the session here.

A Brand is not a Logo

To kick of the day we had Lesley Gulliver from Engine Room Design, an expert in building your brand and developing your underlying vision, mission, values and business.

Due to technology available start-ups have the same chances now as established business. Just one click away!

Here key insights and tools were shared that help to map and visualise possible business models and your Value Proposition (as well as gaps in knowledge). One of our favourite tools used is the Business Model Canvas, that comes in a variety of slightly tailored forms.

Get out and talk to your users!

An extremely important aspect of developing any product is prototyping. For many this word can conjure up images of highly finished models to show investors, but in fact should be considered throughout the complete development chain, from first spark of an idea to taking it to market. It can be many different forms, from prototyping product service experiences to rough and ready cardboard mock-ups, or just specific key elements of a product.

We had Kat Gough of Kitchen Table Design Research, talk through a range of user research techniques, from contextual research to later product validation. The key takeaways for many where that you need to not be afraid to talk to your users and customers throughout, from more formalised research to taking advantage of wider contacts “snowballing”.

It’s vital that you don’t just iterate from your own personal view but get the feed in from those that your product is for, actual users.

To get a good overview of the complete user experience,User Journey Mapping and developing user scenarios, personas or typologies are powerful ways to start to understand the system and interactions around your product throughout its complete lifecycle.

Putting tools into context

On the second day we heard some great case studies and personal experiences in prototyping from one of our startup teams alongside an inspirational overview of the development of a product for aiding in babies incubation from our own operations Director Ashley Sayed.

Finding out the earlier the better

It can be scary when you revisit these tools and ask yourself fundamental questions about your product and the need it solves, the type of business or enterprise you want to be and the values that underpin this. It can underline large gaps in your knowledge or assumptions, you can hear and see things that you didn’t want to see.

However, it’s better to find out about the unexpected or the details as early in the design process and spend the time developing a better understanding about your users and customers and the brand that they will love, as the later you realise this the more expensive it can be……. a warehouse full of products that no one wants is a waste of time, money and resources….

29/10/2015 written by Erica Purvis