Over at “Creating Passionate Users” is a blog post which essentially says that until a user is aware of your product, it is a “Schrödinger’s Product”.
I’m not going to go into the detail because you can read it for yourself.
Essentially – until a user encounters the product, you don’t know if it is alive or dead. When the user becomes aware, then you know. For instance, if the user likes the product then it is alive and if the user dislikes the product then it is dead. Obviously each user makes this decision themselves but don’t be fooled – a product for whom the vast majority declare the death sentence is unlikely to stay alive for long.
So, how do you influence this decision – a decision which may be made within the first 50 microseconds of the user encountering your product. Again there’s a list on “Creating Passionate Users” not surprisingly. My own list is as follows:
• solve real problems (so your users can get on with the cool stuff)
• make it invisible (or at least so easy to use that you second guess yourself)
• create deep feelings of loss (for when the user isn’t able to get at your product)
• listen (because the best source of product ideas are your customers)
I don’t really buy the user testimonials thing – and it ostensibly didn’t work out well for Apple and their Switch campaign (which, though it was successful, wasn’t a big deal). The end user should be able to try out your software – and make up their own mind!