The burden of the new
Julie Zhuo is a product Manager at Facebook, is developing a News Feed and mobile apps. Article about how not to turn your product into a graveyard of ideas.
There is something joyous and exciting in these. Make the image search in Google and you will understand what I mean. The word "new" written in all capital letters (like shrieked out), often housed in a striking star-shaped figure and increasing exclamation marks. There is nothing more exciting. New shouts: "Look at me, I Shine and Manu! Pay attention to the future, full of possibilities that I open! Perhaps I can change your life! At least, will breathe new life into your outdated wardrobe/home/life/product".
"New" is the necessary medicine, a kind of hidden hope. We think that new is always better, so count the days until the next big launch, focus on recently added features or discussion about the latest trend. Every day I see and hear new ideas fly in offices, conference rooms and cafes as tennis balls. That would be cool if we added... I would love to have our product had this new feature... I really think that you can earn a million boys Oh boys, if you assemble a team and make...
Don't get me wrong, I love the flash of new ideas. I like the creative energy and impact mood good hackathon, which in reality embodied hundreds of new desires. I love that I work in technology where a good idea is like a child's toy – a small capsule that you put in the tub, watching as it grows from a giant dinosaur loofah. Awareness of its importance is based on the successful formation and realization of new transformative ideas. So born and bankrupt the company. This is the basis of our entire industry. Agree, it would be foolish not to try to implement the maximum possible number of good ideas in your product.
And yet. Start thinking too often, and you will spoil everything. It was so good simple products gain back the opposite quality. As ball, Katamari, which attracts a variety of objects, your product is becoming more and more functions, and one day a user opens your app and you will see 4 different toolbars and 50 icons cluttering up the UI. Or want to take a look at the list of your services and will be forced to read 32 points on 7 pages. Or click to open the menu, and you'll get 20 different options. Your application will be one of those who force my mom to call me and ask how to use it ("Doroga that means 'release and trust sender'?").
Maybe that is why iA Writer seems like a breath of fresh air compared to the heavy Word and became "App of the year for Mac", collecting almost perfect reviews and is quickly gaining popularity among my writing friends. Full understanding of the product by the user is an advantage – ease of use is opposed to the need to understand the many strange functions.
The introduction of any new functionality in the product is a heavy load. I want to draw special attention to this. Perhaps the new feature is simple to implement. It may take a few days and it will take only a few people. Maybe it could be ready by next week. You may find that additional cognitive load on the user are low: just another icon or additional menu. But as soon as the new feature becomes available, it begins to be a real tool used by real people.
May you continue to develop and improve it. Even if not (maybe you only planned to run it and move on), the existence of this feature will inevitably create more work. You will receive from the users requests and bug reports. You will waste time on idle thoughts on how to improve it. It will probably emerge in the next redesign or update the code.
Of course, if the function is not so successful as you hoped, you can think about its removal. However, it is very difficult to remove even a tiny fraction of what your users like and use them. In order to decide to remove something and then to implement it, requires a significant amount of time and energy. It's not that impossible, but much harder than implementation. Just look at how actively oppose the elimination of Google Reader. Just think how many times the question "Where do we get this strange feature?" comes the answer "legacy".
So, what to do? It is clear that the right is not a waiver of any innovations in the future and not the realization of all the half-baked ideas. Innovations needed! But, planning for adding new features in a product, you need to think about the following two important aspects.
1. The definition of the criteria "green light" and use it to test innovations among small audience. you Have a new idea that you believe will make your users happier and more productive? Increase the number of users? Increase the income of the company? Great, implement and test it. Run a small test or beta version for a very small percentage of their audience, and define the criteria that will point to the feasibility/time of full launch. This may be receiving really positive feedback, increase by X%, increase in income by Y%+.
The definition of these criteria as early as possible (ideally before the launch) will allow you to be more objective at a critical moment. Hard to decide not to run fully on what you have worked hard. However, testing for the rational criterion – the only way to ensure that your idea is exactly what you imagined, before you decide on the costs of its implementation.
In Facebook it's pretty standard practice. We test a lot of different interesting ideas that emerge as a result of the hackathon and team brainstorming, for example the ability to save posts for the future that could be useful to those who are in a hurry and sees the post to which I want to answer or article you want to read later. We were going to run this function only if a sufficient number of users will take advantage of it and deem it useful. If that doesn't happen, it should not take place as another link in all publications. Through testing we found out that actually this function was used by only a small group of users, so I decided not to implement.
2. The definition of the criteria for completion of the project. In some cases, it may be impractical and even impossible to test the idea on a small group. Then you need to ask yourself under what circumstances it would be reasonable to remove the feature or product after implementation. Here also it is easier to be objective at an earlier time.
No one wants to think about failure, but if there is something that you can be sure is the fact that some ideas will fail. Here it is not that investing in the future is a waste of time, because the lessons you extract from failures in the future is often crucial on the path to success. To leave to stagnate unfortunate function of a lot more dangerous than immediately to get rid of them.
Clearly say: "We are launching the function X, as we believe that she will do [here insert relevant terms]. We will invest in it as a possible improvement in N months. After that, if less than Y% of people will use the function X daily, we will operate". This will set your vision for success and ensures that the function X is not just "gathering dust in the corner" and divert the attention of the company and users.
In Facebook we have applied this approach to virtual gifts, launched in 2007. Three years later, the business of virtual gifts has not brought the expected results, and to better concentrate on other things, we closed shop virtual gifts, and the team moved on to other projects. (Two years later this experience has allowed us once again to present the opportunity give gifts, but now real instead of virtual!)
There is nothing wrong with the enthusiasm that you feel about innovations. Dream globally, the maximum globally, if possible. Implement, and implement good ideas: ideas that have the potential and the ideas that keep you up at night because you want to hurry to get out of bed to accomplish them.
Don't forget to clean up after themselves. Don't be the roommate that never makes for a garbage. If the new idea did not work properly, stop to carry her burden. Most importantly, don't go bit by bit and inch by inch, your product has become unnecessarily complicated and turned into the monster that you will cease to learn and that scares people like my mom.
The worst death is the death from the thousands of small punctures.
the Translation is done in the framework of the summer school start-UPS Tolstoy Summer Camp
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