How can UX research inform what features Product should build next?
A tool to guide what features should Product teams fix, build and ignore
When launching products or adding features to existing products, Product Managers are always making trade-offs and asking themselves the million dollar question: what feature should I add next to maximize the return for my money? The matrix is a great tool to help Product Managers answer that question.
How do you create this matrix?
It consists of two parts: “Customer Feedback Spectrum” on the horizontal x-axis and “Value to Company” on the vertical y-axis in the image below. Let’s start by defining customer feedback and value to company and then dig deeper into the matrix with examples related to video conferencing to better understand its usage.
Customer Feedback Spectrum
Customer feedback consists of two parts when experiencing a product — removing pain and adding gain (or delight). For example, an example of a user pain is when you are joining a video conference and more than one person’s audio on their laptop or mobile is on in the room you can hear a piercing sound that is eliminated when the audio is turned off. In an ideal situation video conferencing products should be able to detect if there is another person’s audio on and automatically turn off audio to avoid that uncomfortable moment. On the other hand, adding delight to video conferencing is adding something more than a basic need such as providing panoramic views of the conference room so remote participants can view a 360 view of the room and all be able to better read participants’ non verbal cues thus enhancing the experience though this is not a basic need. Let’s visit the Customer Feedback Spectrum in the image below by having one end as removing pain (usually identified in usability studies for researchers) and adding gain (usually identified in discovery studies leading to product innovation).
We would use a Priority 1, 2 and 3 (P1, P2, P3) system to help prioritize customer feedback for both usability issues and innovative ideas. This would be done in collaboration with the Product team to define what usability issues are P1, P2 or P3. I have found the following descriptions helpful in defining them.
Value to Company
Let’s now look at another critical component of Product decision-making: Value to Company. Value to Company is defined by revenue gained from customers minus the cost to make it. For example, if customers were to want a background noise cancelling tool to video conferencing and say it’s high priority but after speaking to engineers and product managers we find that is extremely expensive to make product managers decide to not make it as the value to the company is negative. It would cost more to make it than customers would want to pay for it. Product managers are making trade-offs by deciding which feature to build by deciding how important or how much customers are willing to pay extra for a feature and the cost to make it. These decision and conversations on what to build are made with Product, Engineering, Operations and Legal (in some cases) and are categorized into High, Medium and Low Value to a company. Other factors that can contribute to Value besides revenue and cost are if it fits with the company’s or product strategy and how would competitors react. For example, RingCentral works in software communications and some customers want 360 degree views of participants in conference rooms which means getting into hardware or supporting hardware but that may not be an area product strategy is currently pursuing.
How do you use this tool?
The chart below puts the Customer Feedback Spectrum on the x-axis and the Value to Company on the y-axis to then plot product features based on customer priority and value to the company. This matrix helps to inform product roadmaps and decide what features to build. It makes sense to use customer feedback and value to company to inform short and long-term product strategy and start building high priority customer feedback that is high value to the company and then move down the value chain (light blue box in image below). It also helps to know what NOT to build even if it’s a customer priority as the value to the company is negative (pink box in image below).
In conclusion, the matrix above is one way product research and product teams can work together on what to build. As always, the best product decisions are always made collaboratively involving engineering, operations and legal teams. It is also good practice to test features in A/B testing environments and iterate on feedback to ensure better success and customer delight.
