How we launched the new Which? App.
Which? is proud to announce the launch of its brand new mobile app available on iOS and Android devices. In this article I write about some of the challenges we faced, some of the trade offs we made, and the exciting future at Which?.
Why build a new app?
Teams at Which? are split into squads. Each squad is an empowered team, who set their own quarterly objectives and key results (OKRs), and work on the initiatives they think will move their metrics in order to achieve the objective.
When forming the Mobile Squad at the beginning of 2021, we asked ourselves why we needed an app in the first place, which actually led to more questions...
Why do we need a mobile app?
“Because we want to be where members are (70% are already on a smartphone when using our website), create a stronger connection with members and build a more marketable product for the future”.
Why is that important?
“By having a mobile app we will be able to better serve our customers who are on the go, or want to easily access our trusted advice and content.”
Why do members need that trusted advice?
“Because they want to make good decisions about a purchase they are thinking about, or learning about how to stay safe as a consumer”
In just those three questions, we had enough to sink our teeth into and could better frame our discovery work from the start.
Our approach to discovery
First of all, the entire team (product, design and the engineers) sat in on user research interviews and took part in speaking to real customers to learn about the intent behind why they needed to use our products.
This then led us to form a mental model diagram, deepening our understanding of user intent, and understanding more about the problem areas.
From there we created problem statements and turned them into How Might We’s (HMW).
For each HMW, we rapidly prototyped potential solutions and user tested them with people from a variety of age groups and backgrounds.
In the space of 3 months we managed to test one idea every week, iterating at each step.
Now that the app has launched, we’re looking at how we bring in continuous discovery into the DNA of how the team works.
Setting an early release cadence.
It was really important that we built in a culture of shipping product in the Mobile Squad.
One of our first key results was about being able to release a minimum of once a week.
We’ll realise the benefits of this over time, as we can ship features and enhancements to members extremely fast.
Building trust.
It takes a team of highly motivated people to build good products. So don’t underestimate the value of trust and some of its core tenets:
- Good working relationships.
- Open, inclusive and collaborative environment.
- Alignment on product vision.
- Honest environment to challenge one another.
Trust can be built remotely, but it’s stronger when relationships are built in person over a coffee in the morning, a team lunch, or a beer after work.
Trust also extends beyond the team.
Empowered product teams don’t exist in a vacuum. We realised that in order to get buy-in for our long term vision, we had to involve teams across the organisation and listen to their ideas.
We ran workshops with colleagues in Content, Marketing, Customer Service, Infosec, Devops (and more!) to begin building this trust across the organisation.
This never ends, it’s an ongoing collaboration. between the squad and all other teams at Which?.
When is the right time to launch an app?
I learnt in past roles that you can throw away your minimum viable product (MVP), slice it in half, and then slice that in half again.
That was the case at Which?. When we looked at the data, some features were used by less than 1% of members, and some of those features didn’t have a material impact on long term retention.
We couldn’t justify rebuilding features that were hardly used, so we took them out.
It’s not all plain sailing.
We thought we had nailed our MVP, but we looked at feedback from our private beta users.
20% of them asked why they couldn’t filter and sort a product category.
So we paused, had a rethink and decided to wait a few more weeks in order to build some of those features in.
It was a scope vs time trade off, and that time we chose scope.
We haven’t got it perfect, but now we have the momentum to continue iterating fast.
What’s next for the app?
We have some exciting plans! These include expanding the app to bring the best of Which? in one place, supporting the broader company vision.
But before we do that, there’s still a lot of basics we need to get done. For example, the app only surfaces some of the reviews Which? writes about, so we are working on making all of those reviews available to members.
Then in the longer term, we’ll have a path for non-members to be able to purchase a Which? subscription directly in the app.
Why it’s an exciting time to be in Product & Tech at Which?
We are building a super strong product & engineering function, growing every day, all working together to build awesome products for our members.
Our empowered product teams are modelled on inspiration from Marty Cagan of SVPG.
My favourite Marty Cagan quote:
“Further, your industry is constantly moving, and we must create products for where the market will be tomorrow, not where it was yesterday.”
Marty Cagan
Summary and lessons learned
- Be lean and defer decision making until you absolutely have to.
- Find real problem areas through talking to customers and understanding their intent.
- Find a balance between getting something out early and building what customers actually want.
- Build trust with your team and wider stakeholder groups.
- Prototype quickly on solutions and test them.
Come join us @ Which?, we’re hiring Product Managers, Designers, User Researchers, Engineers and more! https://www.linkedin.com/company/which/jobs/
Get the new Which? App
iOS: https://apple.co/3wrZYWn
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.which.reviews&hl=en_GB
