User needs trump everything

No matter whether the market scale is large enough or not, and no matter how long the popularity of App can last or where it will go in the future, App has become a new kind of outstanding learning. It seems that everything you talk about must be equal to App. However, because App is limited by the size of mobile phones or tablets, and it is also a concept of software, most of the time, Talking about apps is almost the same as talking about UI or UX

Indeed, because some of the services of apps come from the extension of the Internet and some come from offline business models, it is rare to escape the relevance of these two. After all, a business entity needs to cash out users or traffic, and it is best not to copy the original interface or operating experience of apps, so in addition to the few apps that started the App craze, they emphasized mobile phones, regional In addition to temporary needs and other features, when these needs can be met, everyone turns to the novelty of the interface, the friendliness of the user experience, and the evaluation of emerging apps also turns to this aspect

This reminds me of the most popular website during the Spring Festival travel booking years ago, 12306, the website of the Ministry of Railways of China. I still remember the comments of many netizens on Weibo: its interface is ugly, its UI is rough, its server is unstable, and its user experience is even worse. But it is the most powerful e-commerce in history! Without advertising for a penny, ALEXA ranked 260 in the world in just a few days. The daily order volume is almost guaranteed to be the first, and the conversion rate is well deserved to be the first. Why? Because you can't go home for the Spring Festival without buying tickets on this website, the demand is very strong

So, the above two situations make me think that whether it is the trend development of App product planning or website product layout, user needs definitely take precedence over user experience or user interface. Why do you stick to the latter and pay less attention to the former? Are most user needs met? Or is the cost of discovering or creating user needs so high that everyone follows suit? I think it is always faster to enjoy the success. As long as we make improvements on the existing basis, it is always relatively easy, but this kind of thing is not suitable for most of the early teams, because the barriers to entry are not high enough and the business model is not deep enough to become a long-term business model

So how can we find new user needs, or lead a product to create user needs?

I still want to emphasize the art of doing small things. Only by focusing on a small point can a really heavy user know where the user needs are. So I think the first task is to study whether the existing user needs are really fully met, what are the shortcomings, and how many people have this demand, really find out the existing shortcomings, and really fill it, What we are talking about here is not the shallow UI or UX, but the deep and real demand side. At present, most products (whether apps or the Internet) are designed to meet the majority of people's needs, but there are still many professional needs that are lacking. Of course, this is also the operator's lack of understanding of these professions, but more are really ignored, Many situations are not without market or demand, but users and providers can not explain clearly

In fact, many apps or other products have more or less made up for the shortcomings of existing products or services, but unfortunately only half of them have done so, which is more a lack of the concept of a complete product. They are just based on the shortcomings of user needs. In addition, most teams are mainly engineers, and have proposed a framework (or tool) that can be improved, However, it is a pity that the user cannot understand and is unwilling to pay the bill, and does not understand the essence of the product, so it can only be regarded as a semi-finished product, because the new product should be served directly to the user at the beginning, telling the user what the taste is and how to eat it, rather than waiting for the user to cook it himself. First, the user may not understand it, and second, the user is not so proactive, This generally appears on many apps

On this basis, we can talk about user behavior. At this level, we will talk more about UI or UX, especially for App. Because the Internet has been a mature field for more than ten years, we will put more emphasis on UI or UX. What we are talking about here is user behavior research, how to make users use it more easily, As well as the willingness to continue using the app without deleting the products of other competitors, in addition to the so-called process problems, of course, there are refinement, freshness, beauty, and so on

Finally, whether it is to make up for the lack of existing user needs or to create new user needs, it is necessary to think about a profit model in advance, so that users or flows can be converted into cash flows, whether the revenue is directly from users or from enterprises in the alliance, because a product is a commercial act, and a product that does not make profits is not a good product, Enterprises that do not make money should be eliminated, which is a realistic consideration point

Having written so much, I think that friends who are engaged in product planning or development should slow down to focus on some real points, what are the core values, instead of being too impatient to blindly follow the trend, let alone being conceptualized. Many times, they may win the first prize, but in fact they lose more, Because you could have calmed down and made better and deeper products, and we also encourage you to introspect