After a usability test of a product website I thought about why the test users didn’t understand the product as we did it. Sure, we know it better since we work with it already for 2 years. However, even technological educated users didn’t really understand it.
Some thoughts later – and bike rides, which I usually need to think about stuff – I remembered a book I read about 5 years ago: “Crossing the Chasm” from Geoffrey A. Moore
A short overview of “Crossing the Chasm”.
In this book Moore explains how high-tech companies can market new innovations to the mainstream market. This is important because the early market and the mainstream don’t share a lot when discontinuous innovations are to be sold. The important aspect is the adapted technology adoption life cycle and the chasm that lies between the early adopters and the early majority.
Crossing the chasm with scenarios and personas
The key to get into the mainstream market is to use a small segment and start with that and then use adjacent segments to sell more and more. In order to select a segment he suggests to create target customers and scenarios for these customers of how they will use the product within their segment.
We need something that feels a lot more like real people. However, since we do not have real live customers as yet, we are just going to have to make them up.
This might be familiar to anyone working in user experience design.
How does relate to personas in user interface design?
When UX designers create a website, product, or any other service they usually use personas to better understand the needs and be able to judge about different design options. The model now suggests that we have to use different personas in the technology life cycle since the 5 psychographic groups change over time. Each group needs a different set of product presentation and reasons to buy. The most important group is, however, the early majority since they need a whole product that can provide a complete user experience.