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How can you achieve such focus though? Let’s look at two examples that will help explain the concept of a User Experience Vision.
Evernote is a note-taking tool. Every computer ships today with at least two or three free, pre installed, note-taking applications. How come Evernote is so successful? One reason for that is Phil Libin’s grand vision for the product. He wants it to replace your brain. Seriously. This is beautifully captured by Evernote’s perfectly crafted tagline — “Remember Everything”. So simple. So powerful. The beauty of this tagline is that it touches a real pain (you forget stuff), offers a compelling vision (you will now remember everything), and even more importantly – gives the Evernote team a beautiful User Experience Vision to optimize for.
When Dropbox was founded, there were probably more than 100 companies that were offering some sort of cloud storage or backup. How did Dropbox grow so fast? Phenomenal virality aside, the key to Dropbox’s success was a fantastic product. But what did Dropbox build? When they started their message was: “Your files everywhere”. Simple. Powerful. Clear. Now, as they move beyond that, it changed to “Simplify your life”. It relates to the Dropbox’s plan for the future.
The Ingredients of a Great User Experience Vision
It’s very hard to capture the UXV of your product in such a meaningful and concise manner. To make it easier, consider the four critical elements that make a great User
Experience Vision:
- It addresses a real need – If you don’t know what is the need you are solving for, I suggest that you take time and think through it. Now. It will also give you a good starting point for defining the UXV and help you focus on what is meaningful for the user.
- It is simple — keeping the UXV simple is critical so you can communicate it effectively to your customers, team, partners or any other stakeholder. If it is not simple, you probably didn’t figure out the right UXV yet.
- It serves as a guiding light — a successful UXV provides guidance to your team as for what to build next. It can help you think through your roadmap and identify whether the next feature you are building will be useful or not.
- It is unique — it does not apply to every other startup on earth. Don’t have as your UXV something like “Great User Experience”. The more unique it is, the more meaningful it will be.
It is not easy to come up with a UXV. It takes time. You have to intimately understand the needs of your users. It might take weeks to come up with a good one and either way you will keep developing and refining it. The time to start is now.
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