Product Behavior

A tool that I end up using on nearly every project is the “Conversation Map.” I wrote a while ago about treating product interactions as conversations, and this is one of the simple-yet-key ways I use to make sure the interaction make sense and follows the conversational rules we all expect.

Here’s a simple example: what does the interaction between a vending machine and a customer look like? I put together a quick conversation map…

Exactly where a product falls on the “Love It / Solves It” axes depends on what it means for a particular consumer to “love” a particular product, and on what it means for that product so “solve” a consumer’s problem. Any change to the product (and the way it is marketed) may move the product in any direction.

Characterizing what goes into a purchase decision is, I’m guessing, the most important thing a company can do. Why does anyone buy anything? There are lots of ways to talk about it, but the one I’m enjoying these days, I call the “Love It / Solve It” chart.

The idea is this: In order for me to buy a product, it must both solve my problem, to some extent, and I must love it, to some extent. Exactly how much a product must solve and how much I must love before I’ll by are related to each other along some curve. If a product is above and to-the-right of the curve, as the star is, I’ll by. Below the curve, and no dice.

A couple of times in the last week I’ve noticed a new product: Scott “Xtreme” Rags. They’re so new they’re not even on the Scott website, as far as I can tell. But I saw them at Home Depot last weekend, and when I peeked into a store undergoing renovation a few days later. It’s a product that seems aimed at the contractor market, and I think it’s a strange mash-up. It’s a product simultaneously of the lowest and the highest value.