Product Management: From Problem Identification to Testable Solution
There are so many problems to be solved in the world, but the perfect shower beer is no longer among them. Thanks to a Swedish design firm, Snask, you can now enjoy a sweet pale ale in just 4 sips — the perfect amount before it gets too warm. We can’t deny the significance of this important (and now official) product, right? This is a pretty sexy solution to a problem most people didn’t know they had and it was likely a windy road for the design team to get there.
It’s not always easy to identify where to start when it comes to improving a product, service or creating something new altogether. This semester I started a product innovation course that integrates UX principles and product management. A Product Manager is often responsible for the strategy, roadmap and feature definition for a product. Our graduate class has been tasked with taking an existing brand and identifying areas for improvement. While this list is not exhaustive, here is an overview of the steps I went through to get from identifying a problem to a discovering a testable solution using Impossible Foods as a case study.
Case Study: Impossible Foods
Impossible Foods is a Silicon Valley Startup disrupting the meat industry with a lab grown, plant-based “meat” patty. The company was founded by a Stanford biochemistry professor, Patrick Brown, and has raised over $185 million from investors including Google Ventures, Khosla Ventures and Bill Gates. Their current product, the Impossible Burger, has several key characteristics:
- Lab grown with the intention to have the consistency and taste of a classic beef burger
- Price point of $14-$18
- Currently available in restaurants only
- Current locations include 300+ restaurants across the US
Research
The research phase can take on many forms depending on the timeline, project scope, access to company data and analytics, etc. I didn’t have access to internal company data, so I focused my research on a competitive analysis, consumer interviews, and analytics I pulled from Alexa.
Competitors
While the meat industry is considered a major competitor, other key players include the following:
- The company Beyond Meat has a mission to create mass-market solutions that replace animal protein with plant protein. It is committed to getting their product into grocery stores and restaurants across the country. The company currently makes burgers, chicken strips and sausage.
- Other meat substitute food companies such as Boca Burger, Gardein, Tofurky and Field Roast offer plant-based options widely available in supermarkets and restaurants across the country.
Customers
Impossible Foods is currently using social media and celebrity chefs to drive attention to restaurants serving its product. As a result of this strategy, the company may be receiving a lot of buzz, but not necessarily a huge volume of people trying the product. The company recently expanded its facility to increase production and reach a wider audience. The current price point of the Impossible Burger could be cost prohibitive for some, however, current customer segments include the following:
- Meat-lovers
- Health and dietary conscious
- Vegetarians
- Vegans
- Environmentally and socially conscious individuals
- Foodies
Once I had compiled my data I created several design artifacts and started thinking through some areas for improvement.
Personas
Insights from research and user interviews helped me formulate the main persona for this project. Angela Hawkins represents a wider community of people that enjoy dining out, consider themselves health conscious and love to try new things.
Customer Journey Map
I utilized a journey map to detail the path a user, like Angela, would take to purchase the Impossible Burger in her city. The journey map includes positive and negative emotions to convey what the user might be experiencing and to explore opportunities to address pain points.
I included a potential solution in the journey map. While Impossible Foods is operating in a niche market, their competitors are actively building a database of customers and fans of their products through newsletter signups. As a start-up, a newsletter will allow Impossible Foods to build an audience outside of social media, notify users when their products are available in their city and provide offers and discounts. On the current website there is no mechanism for users to receive a notification when the Impossible Burger is available in their city.
Wireframes
The newsletter signup could be integrated on two different areas of the website, I’ve included one example below. The footer of the current website does have a newsletter signup, but only an email can be submitted. It does not allow users to enter a zip code. The modal pop-up would include a submittal form for first and last name, email, and zip code.
Next Steps
The next phase of this process would be to build and launch the newsletter feature and test its effectiveness. Specific metrics, like newsletter signups and bounce rate would need to be tracked and tested. In a perfect world a UX Designer would have access to company data and analytics to find actionable insights. When that is not the case, it is still possible to use tools at your disposal to assess areas for improvement for a product or service.
