Con-B in Prod-Man

KARTHIK SRINIVASAN

WWW.CARNIVAS.COM

TOPICS TO DISCUSS TODAY

1. Background of this lecture

2. Con-B in Prod-Man

a. Applying ‘Personality’ concepts

b. Applying ‘Motivation’ concepts

c. Applying ‘Perception’ concepts

d. Applying ‘Attitude’ concepts

e. Applying ‘Learning’ concepts

3. Concluding thoughts

4. Quiz!

BACKGROUND OF THIS LECTURE

Consumer Behavior concepts apply equally well to

the 1st P (Product) as they do to the 4th (Promotion)

Examples from Consumer Behavior texts

focus on the ‘Promotions’ and to an extent

on ‘Price’ and even lower on ‘Place’. ‘Product’

related examples are rare to find.

Why?

(a) Products were commodities

(b) There was not much ‘interface’ between

users & products

(c) Products remained in the same form as

shipped from their factories & were not

‘connected’

How do things change when software starts eating the world?

Remember, software products are ‘produced’ before and after

sale, even as the consumption process happens

Con-B concepts apply to any stage of the PLC:

We focus on the initial few stages today

Even more specific, we focus on the ‘design

process’ outlined in ‘Inmates are…’

UX

Scenarios

Goals

Personas

This is a template for creating personas,

typically used by design teams

APPLICATION OF ‘PERSONALITY’ CONCEPTS

Concepts from ‘Personality’ directly apply to

the ‘Persona’ creation stage of product design

• Insights from ‘Personality’ concept of Consumer Behavior can be straight

applied into the ‘Persona’ stage of the design process

• ‘Personas’ define the characteristics of typical users of your product – User

Experience design is heavily influenced by the personas that are defined

(primary, secondary & so on)

• Even beyond personas, during the usage of a product, the interface keeps

changing based on “Personalized recommendations”.

• It is difficult in marketing communications to achieve an N=1 level of

segmentation but in your product design, we can get close

• While qualitative theories like Freud do apply anywhere, we can see more

application of the quantitative / empirical concepts in product design

These are some concepts from ‘Personality’

that are useful in Product Design (1/2) Concept Application

Trait Theory & Personality

Characteristics

Research around personas should include a

‘personality’ test & add a scale for “Consumer

Innovativeness, Dogmatism, Social Character, Need for

uniqueness, Optimum stimulation level, Sensation

seeking, Variety / Novelty seeking”

Cognitive Factors (Need for

cognition,

Visualizers/Verbalizers)

At launch of a service, , show content directly versus

let them choose content of their interest

Provide summary of new content in text versus show

content as collage of images

Compulsive Consumption In App ads & Game behavior – King.com’s application

into Candy Crush Saga & other games

Concept of “Whales” in Games & in Amazon Prime

Identification of your potential whales becomes easier

through some cues in ‘Profile’ / ‘Persona’ etc.

These are some concepts from ‘Personality’

that are useful in Product Design (2/2) Concept Application

Brand / Product Personality Every aspect of the product (Interaction Design,

Visual Design, Copy) in the product interface

shows a personality, not just logo & name.

Example of Mail Chimp

Apply the 5 dimensions: Sincerity, Excitement,

Competence, Sophistication & Ruggedness

One or multiple selves Helps in building the persona (Add the various

selves as part of persona itself) – Follow Home

approach (Observe the user in his natural

settings).

Hindi UI example – Want to see Hindi only when

alone, not with friends

Product Specific [Personal Vanity (Achievement /

Physical) – Games], [Expected / Ought to Selves –

Utility]

APPLICATION OF ‘MOTIVATION’ CONCEPTS

Concepts from ‘Motivation’ directly apply to the

‘Goals Identification’ stage of product design

• Persona exists to achieve his goals. Goals exist to give meaning to a

persona

• Tasks Vs Goals: Goal is an end condition. Task is an intermediate process

needed to achieve that goal. Task changes with technology but goals are

very stable. Tasks may look contradictory to a goal. For example: You need

to mow a lawn (a task) to rest in the lawn (goal)

• Without consumer behavior concepts, we design for ‘tasks’ – not goals!

• Personal Vs. Practical Goals (We usually solve for ‘practical’ goals)

• Dr. Fogg posits that there are 3 ingredients to initiate a behavior:

motivation, ability and trigger. B = MAT (behavior = motivation + ability +

trigger)

These are some concepts from ‘Motivation’

that are useful in Product Design Concept Application

Promotion Focus &

Prevention Focus

Example: Energy Tracking device app. Show energy

conserved versus Device wise details

Rational versus Emotional

Motives

These are related to the practical versus personal goals

(Example: Dashboard creation software)

Approach object &

Avoidance object (Positive &

Negative motivations)

Example: Education software – People signing up on

their own versus forced by their employer

Trio of needs (Power,

Achievement & Affiliation)

Power: iPhone versus Mi-Phone

Achievement: Think of any game

Affiliation: Social sharing / Influencers etc.

Motivation Research like

ZMET

I did for Tata Nano but can be applied to a software

product as well (Nano: on MLCP, Click sound of car

opening etc.) – On software? Ability to send smileys;

Ability to attach emails; Knowledge of trailers ahead of

others

APPLICATION OF ‘PERCEPTION’ CONCEPTS

Concepts from ‘Perception’ directly apply to

the ‘User testing’ stage of product design

• While ‘personality’ applies to segmentation/targeting & persona building,

‘perception’ applies to the next step – ‘Positioning’

• If positioning is made clear while the product is being made, you would not

be searching for ‘attribute-benefit’ later while promoting the product. Each

attribute you build would be because there is a ‘benefit’ for the segment

automatically

• In the ‘beer’ example, irrespective of the segments, the ‘product’ remains

same. The messaging changes from ‘low calorie’ to ‘lite’ but it is likely that

your product would change in case of a software product

These are some concepts from ‘Perception’

that are useful in Product Design (1/2) Concept Application

Sensation You should think of ‘sensation’ when you do your UX

design – Affordances (tactile), Easy to use navigation,

Skeuomorphism, and graphic elements used

Thresholds and JND Applies to number of advertisements (versus original

content) you could slip in without the consumer

realizing it (example: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.)

Other applications of JND – Storage size of emails,

Number of songs in your pocket etc.

Subliminal perception While physical products can do only in advertisements,

you have a screen where you can play subliminal cues

all the time – Repeated exposure of subliminal cues is

what helps. Not possible with advertisements but

possible with product interface

These are some concepts from ‘Perception’

that are useful in Product Design (2/2)

Concept Application

Perceptual Selection – Contrast Google Search Results, Play Store search results /

screenshots etc.

Need for closure Could be exploited in products. Like ‘7 people

looked at your profile’ in LinkedIn

Perceptual Mapping Create perceptual maps & decide on positioning

right from the time you conceive a product and

extend it till promotions.

Perceived Risks (Functional Risk,

Physical Risk, Financial Risk,

Social Risk, Psychological Risk,

Time Risk)

Identify the 6 types of risks and put it as part of

your start-up wizard, Play Store description etc.

A few more concepts: Scarcity effect (people want things that are scarce), Framing effect (people

value things that are in places that are typically considered valuable), Anchoring effect (people

usually anchor on a piece of information & compare everything to it), Endowed Progress effect

(people want to complete an action after seeing some progress already)

APPLICATION OF ‘ATTITUDE’ CONCEPTS

Concepts from ‘Attitude’ directly apply to the

‘User Testing’ stage, post launch

• “Attitude occurs within a situation”

• “Sometimes Attitude follows the purchase & consumption of a product”

• “Attitudes that develop through direct experience (product usage) tend to

be more confidently held, more enduring and more resistant to attack than

those developed by indirect experience (ad)”

These are some concepts from ‘Attitude’ that

are useful in Product Design (1/2) Concept Application

Attitude Object “Product” is the attitude object (or you could even

make each feature an object for the purpose of

research)

Affective Response Scales

(Old Spice example)

Choose appropriate feelings & emotions based on your

product

Attitude towards Behaviour Feeling accomplished once completing a game/task

Feeling overwhelmed etc.

“Theory of trying to

consume” model

Shopping Carts analysis in eCommerce (Personal

Impediments versus Environmental impediments)

Attitude Change: Resolving

conflicting attitudes

Changing the relative evaluation of attributes –

Expensive, Makes me productive; Difficult, Feeling of

accomplished; etc.

These are some concepts from ‘Attitude’ that

are useful in Product Design (2/2)

Concept Application

Three segments of dissonance

(High Dissonance Segment, Low

Dissonance segment and

Concerned about needing the

purchase Segment)

First few interactions of the product should allay

appropriate fears of each party. Add it as part of the

persona identification

Attribution theory Self Perception theory (Internal Attribution/

External Attribution) – Automatically Photoshop

example came in! Add appropriate scenarios/use

cases where the user feels the product is helping

him look good. Social sharing of one’s

accomplishments (add your text in the tweet!);

Device-Network example of where it is attributed

Attribution Testing

(Distinctiveness, Consistency

and Consensus)

Explicitly add these in User Testing research post

launch

APPLICATION OF ‘LEARNING’ CONCEPTS

These are some concepts from ‘Learning’ that

are useful in Product Design (1/2) Concept Application

Classical Conditioning Notifications & response (When to send notifications!).

Show notification with latest news every morning –

Once there is a reward seen, the person will start

craving for it even without a notification (I was an

addict till last month)

Advertising Wear out Notification Wear out?

Like the ‘three-hit’ theory, we should do research on

the number of notifications that make enough habit

forming responses

Customer Satisfaction &

Reinforcement

Provide delight through simple product features:

Evernote adding the meeting subject as the title of the

note. Credits/Badges as rewards & reinforcement

These are some concepts from ‘Learning’ that

are useful in Product Design (2/2)

Concept Application

Service Recovery Apologize, Back up etc. are very important in

product design (deleted files, photos etc.)

Modelling & Observational

Learning

Leader boards in games, Influencers in LinkedIn

Measurement of product

involvement

Conduct a research and measure “Important,

Interesting, Relevant, Exciting, Meaningful,

Appealing, Fascinating, Priceless, Involving, and

Necessary”

Variable Reward Theory: Rewards of the tribe (Facebook with its LIKES, COMMENTS, SHARES

etc), Rewards of the hunt (Most significant examples of this are in the way 'games' are designed),

Rewards of the self (Another good example here is the Q&A site 'Mahalo' where users were paid

to answer. That site did not kick off but 'Quora' did because it involved rewards of self & tribe)

CONCLUDING NOTES

What more could go into a ‘persona’, applying

Con B concepts?

Personality traits

Multiple Selves

Dissonance

Segment

Need for

cognition

Promotion/Prev

ention Perceived Risks

End Notes

Hope this served as a good enough introduction. We have just scratched

the surface on this. We can go a lot deeper into each concept and apply to a

product – Someone could take it up a their ‘final’ project

Other References

Quiz

1. One or Multiple Selves concepts can be applied to the ####_## of a product

2. Only repeated exposure of _######### perception has an impact

3. Cognitive factors influence is someone is a _######### or a Verbalizer

4. Theory of trying to consume can be applied to _####### carts

5. An example of 'Need for Closure' is the “Who saw your profile” in ####_###

6. That a user liked to go by car in an MLCP came through ##_# research

7. Power, Affiliation & Achievement form the _### of needs

8. When you add more ads in your newsfeed without you noticing, they apply the concept of _##

9. Mail chimp example was used in the concept of Product & _#### personality

Pick up all the letters from the _ and find a word. Jumble it to find someone

who applied these concepts intuitively

Answer