Is this the real needs of users? you sure?

Demand analysis is a basic skill of product managers, both new and old drivers have to go through this link. However, the demand analysis is not so simple. From time to time, we are easily subject to pseudo-demand pits, which are easily dragged down by the unprofitable demand. So how should we do a good job of demand analysis? During the Spring Festival, I sorted out my work notes and shared them with everyone.

Determine the authenticity of the demand

We will encounter a variety of needs, some of which are real and some of which are pseudo-needs. We must first screen the authenticity of the demand. Pseudo-demand is usually the user’s apparent demand, not the user’s real pain point. The problem with pseudo-demand is that the target user finds that there is no link or process that will use this function, even if it can be used, it will find that the cost is too great.

Think again, you may find that the pseudo-requirement is usually “the user proposes a solution.” Users are usually only vaguely expressing the surface’s needs, and they may not have the time or ability (and no need) to come up with a real solution. If the product manager is only satisfied with such a form, it will fall into the pit of pseudo-demand.

To identify the authenticity of the requirements, we need to go deep into the user’s use of the scene, rather than stop at the surface requirements. To give an example: the user will say that I am hungry. The real need behind the surface requirements of refining to different scenarios is different. If the user is in extreme fatigue or time constraints, it is necessary to hurry to eat or go to sleep or go on a road, the real need behind it may be “the sooner the better, the better to eat and hurry to rest.” If the user is a sister who is shopping with her boyfriend, the real need behind the phrase “I am hungry” is “I want to eat in a stylish place.”

To sum up, the pseudo-requirement is only the surface demand point. The real demand needs the product manager to combine the user’s real scene to visualize.

Whether the demand is just needed

We have screened out the real needs and can’t start right away. We must also analyze whether this demand is just needed, and the real demand that is not just needed is also delayed.

How to judge whether the demand is just needed?

In a word: Whether the demand is large enough, whether it is sustainable, can not be a hammer.

Specifically, it can be judged from 3:

1. Estimate the target user base, spending power, willingness budget, and industry open comparison.

The product manager should go to see what the target user base is, whether the user will continue to spend the demand for this demand, what is the psychological price, whether the market has similar competing products, what is their user situation, the status of the whole industry how is it.

2. How much efficiency can be improved and how much cost can be saved?

This is to say how much efficiency and cost reduction can be achieved for our target users. This is very important, users are not stupid, they will not pay for a time-consuming and costly ribbon. Yu Jun proposed a formula that I think is very suitable for explaining this:

Product Value = (New Experience / New Efficiency – Old Experience / Old Efficiency) – Cost of switching to a new experience

If this demand is solved, but the user’s replacement cost is too large, the experience is not as good as the original. Then this demand is probably not just needed. Because he did not actually solve the user’s efficiency problems. One of the essence of innovation is “efficiency.”

For example, some people envision an APP to provide local life information services for users in the fourth- and fifth-tier cities. We can try to analyze this demand with a small county with a population of 300,000. The small county town is not large, the economy is developed in general, and tourism is the main industry. The channels for local people to obtain life information services are very simple. The streets are turned around, and the words are passed from friends to friends. The leaflets are distributed and convenient. Specifically to install an app? Too much trouble, but also account for my memory, I will not necessarily use it, the most important thing is that there is no convenience than before; in addition, there are not so many local life service information in small cities, nothing more than discounts for downstairs supermarkets. , for this information to install an APP? If you are a foreign tourist, you may come once in a lifetime, install an app to learn about the tourist information here? It is not realistic to think about it.

3. Is the demand extensible?

The third priority is to understand whether the demand is extensible. Considering the need behind this demand is not to bring a bigger market, that is, the opportunity for this entry point to enter a larger market. Is there enough extension? Only such a demand can be regarded as just a need, which can bring us continuous development space. If there is not much extension behind a demand, then we are likely to suffer in the fierce market competition. After all, China has more resources than you have more resources than you.

For example, New Oriental began to cut into the GRE TOEFL. The market behind TOEFL is actually China’s huge English education market. Later, it can be extended to vocational English training and extended to K12 English tutoring. There are many extension points behind TOEFL, and the market space is relatively sufficient.

Measuring the ability to liquidate demand

To consider this, we must think about these issues:

Can demand be realized in the short term or in the medium and long term? (Users are not willing to budget for this for a long time)

The same demand has emerged, is there anyone in the industry already doing it? Whether his approach can be used for reference, whether his products will compete with us in a certain period of time, if so, where is the differentiated liquidity; if you can’t think of differentiation, how can you overtake the curve by following it?

Does realizing affect the user experience?

Objectively analyze the requirements and consider them into the use scenario.

We may have such a confusion, clearly doing a lot of user research, the resulting end users do not pay. Why is this? I think it is mainly the product personnel and the researcher’s own cognitive limitations, and the pre-emptive set of options. For example, when I have done a questionnaire survey of home robots, when I asked about what role robots can bring, I actually set the options according to my own understanding, although I also let users fill them out. However, after the questionnaire was collected, it was found that there were very few users who filled in the questionnaires. Most of the users were ticked in the options I designed. There is a possibility that the real demand scenario is not included in the options. So in this case, no matter how large the user sample, we can’t get the real needs of the user.

Therefore, we should try to judge the demand as much as possible into the user usage scenario. The use of the scene will take into account the influence of various factors, which can be used to observe the authenticity of the demand. The most stupid but most effective way is to observe what the user does, and don’t just look at what the user is saying. What are the links in the user’s usage scenario, and what external factors will affect the use of the user, and where are the problems in the user’s old use process?