#user analysis

Hmmmmmm~ Well, I’ll have to deduce my analysis using bits and pieces of canon Knockout and Starscream!

Knockout: While vain, he can be very respectful to those who show him respect in turn, even if they decide not to compliment his outstanding finish. He works very diligently, is very creative, but seems to take a little more time perfecting an idea rather than charging in headlong. Organized. Has to be. Doctors always need to know where their tools are. Despite having rigorous guidelines in his med bay, he shows a need to impulsively ‘let loose’ when he’s stressed, regardless if he has a patient waiting. But once he gets back to the patient/project he’s working on, all bets are on him doing a fantastic job.

Starscream: Naughty. But in a good way! He’s always thinking. His big plans never have big failures unless someone else decides they want to stop his plan from succeeding. While his ultimate plans may fail, he’s very quick to think his way out of a problem and find solutions, indicating a very creative mind. His demand for respect at all times makes it hard for him to share a similar regard for others, so his attitude can be off putting unless he has a use for you (and makes you feel useful to him, that’s how he strings you along). He’s always out to prove his own value, always trying to out do those he works alongside, always striving to be better than the rest; this can be tiresome to be a part of or watch.

Smartphones have become an important way for Americans to communicate, go online, and access and share information. A new Pew Research Center report analyzes smartphone ownership and the attitudes and behaviors of smartphone owners, as well as how these mobile devices have become a primary way for some users to access the internet.

Here are six key findings from the report:

1.  The share of Americans who own a smartphone has substantially increased since 2011, when Pew Research first began examining smartphone adoption. Today, nearly two-thirds (64%) of U.S. adults own a smartphone, up from 35% in 2011. Younger adults as well as those who are more affluent and have higher levels of education are among the most likely groups to own a smartphone.

2.  Some smartphone owners – particularly younger adults, minorities and lower-income Americans – depend on their      smartphone for internet access. Of U.S. adults who own a smartphone, 7% are “smartphone-dependent,” meaning that they do not have home broadband service and have limited options for going online other than their mobile device. Young adults, ages 18-29, are more likely (15%) than other age groups to be smartphone-dependent, while Latinos (13%) and African Americans (12%) are more heavily dependent on their smartphone for internet access than are whites (4%). Lower-income Americans also rely heavily on smartphones for going online – 13% of U.S. adults with an annual household income of less than $30,000 are smartphone-dependent, compared with 1% of those whose family household income is $75,000 or more.

3.  While texting, talking, emailing and going online dominate, a majority of Americans also use their smartphones for social networking, taking photos or videos, and catching up with the news. A vast majority of smartphone owners say they used their phone for text messaging, voice and video calling, email and accessing the internet at least once over a weeklong “experience sampling” study. Besides these four activities, other smartphone apps were also popular. Three-quarters of smartphone owners reported using their phone for social media, while 60% took pictures or a video, and more than half (55%) got news on their smartphone at least once over the course of the one-week survey period.

4.  Smartphones serve as an access point for navigating a wide array of important life events, from health conditions to new jobs. Roughly six-in-ten (62%) smartphone owners have used their phone to get information about a health condition in the past year, similar to the percentage who say they’ve used their smartphone for online banking. Americans are not only using their smartphone to find information about jobs, but they’re also using their phones to apply. Fully 18% of smartphone owners overall have submitted a job application via their mobile device, and among those whose household income is less than $30,000, that share is substantially higher, at 32%.

5.  How essential is your smartphone to your life?  46% of smartphone owners say their smartphone is something “they couldn’t live without,” compared with 54% who say that their phone is “not always needed.” Interestingly, smartphone owners who depend on their mobile device for internet access are not significantly more inclined than those who have multiple options for going online to say they couldn’t live without their phone (49% vs. 46%).

6. Owning a smartphone can be a financial burden for some users. Nearly one-quarter (23%) of smartphone owners have canceled or suspended their cell phone service because the cost was too expensive. This is particularly the case for smartphone owners whose annual household income falls below $30,000, of which 44% have discontinued their service. And while a majority of smartphone owners (80%) say their mobile device is worth the cost, 19% describe their phone as a financial burden.

Source: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/01/6-facts-about-americans-and-their-smartphones/

Analytics for web and iOS

Heap automatically captures every user action in your app and lets you measure it all. Clicks, taps, swipes, form submissions, page views, and more.

When Jack Dorsey wrote a blog post about reconsidering the term 'users,' he hit a real nerve in the startup community. He argued that a word commonly used and deeply ingrained in its culture is wrong: it's too passive, too abstract and carries negative connotations to drug usage. He then proceeded to ban the word entirely at his company, Square, in an open letter to all employees. For some, this may have been a shock, but to others like me, it came as a breath of fresh air.

Coming from a marketing background, I've always questioned the rationale behind treating human beings as lifeless units who use things. Are they nothing more than a group of emotionless drones who click on links? Apparently, some people think so. It only occurred to me recently that this problem runs very deep. Most tech folks have no clue who interacts with their product, nor do they understand the reason behind their behavior. Yet, their business would not exist without them.

Understanding your customers is one of the foundations of marketing, which means it applies as much to startups as it does to big companies. It carries numerous benefits, from helping you build a better product to tailoring your key message and creating stronger branding. To get it right, you must answer two questions:

1. Who are my existing customers? 2. Who should my customers be?

Knowing how to answer these questions is especially important to early-stage startups, which are still figuring out their product-market fit. That's because customers are the 'market' side of the equation: they determine whether the product and its feature set meet their needs. If the audience isn't a good fit, then obsessing over granular metrics is a moot point.

This first essay will help you gain a better understanding of the people who already use your product, while the second will help you determine the customers who are most valuable to your business.

Your customers may not be who you expect...

UNDERSTANDING YOUR EXISTING CUSTOMERS

The natural starting point for any customer exploration is to understand your existing customers. These people were motivated enough to visit your site or download your mobile app, and then took the time to learn its interface and use it. By making this initial contact, they've invited you to build a relationship with them. To do this right, you need to know who they are and limit the number of assumptions you make about them. Below are several ways to get your answers.

Talk to them It's not rocket science, but a lot of people still omit this step. A simple introductory email usually works (sent via Gmail or an email marketing service like MailChimp or CampaignMonitor). It's best if it comes directly from the founder - I recently received a note from the founder of Quibb and it made me feel welcome in the community. If your site/app doesn't require people to sign up with email, use a live chat or customer support service like Olark and LiveChat for web and UserVoice and Appboy for mobile. You'll be surprised how much people will share, even if your questions are open-ended.

Meet them in person There's nothing better than real, human contact with the people who buy/use your product. For B2B companies, in-person meetings are a regular part of business and a great opportunity to learn about customers. If, for whatever reason, you can't join these meetings, make sure to pick the brains of people who do (sales, biz dev, etc) to see what they've observed. For B2C companies, in-person interactions are much more difficult to scale, but can still provide a lot of valuable insights. To maximize your time, recruit a small group of influential and geographically co-located customers and invite them to a happy hour, meetup or other event. Community-focused companies like Yelp, TaskRabbit and Skillshare do this well.

Research their basic information Without asking your customers outright, you should get a general sense of their demographics (gender, age, education, location, etc). Assuming you have their emails, a tool like Rapleaf can get you all of this information for a nominal amount. For more established websites, you can find it free of charge on Quantcast (but I would take these results with a grain of salt). You can also get a sense of your customers' social influence by tapping into their Facebook or Twitter profiles via tools like Intercom for web or Appboy for mobile. None of this data is perfect, but it will help uncover bigger trends that you may not have noticed, such as your site/app being used predominantly by women (Pinterest), attracting a large group of influential people (Rebel Mouse, Quibb) or gaining popularity outside the United States (Ignighter, now StepOut).

See how they're using your product Understanding what your customers do with your product provides another valuable data point. What's the first thing they do when they visit your site/app? What pages/screens do they visit most often? How frequently do they use your product? What type of content do they generate? For aggregate site and usage analytics, use tools like Google Analytics for web or Flurry and Mixpanel for mobile. For more robust behavioral profiles and event tracking on mobile app, use a relationship management platform like Appboy.

Ask them to fill out a survey A survey is often helpful to gauge the motivations behind your product's use as well as general attitudes towards it. To collect this data, you can use basic tool like Google Forms (which can be embedded directly into Gmail), or a more robust survey platform like FluidSurveys and SurveyMonkey. Remember to keep the survey short (6-7 questions), as people don't have time for a big commitment. Below I've synthesized the most important questions to ask your new customers:

How did you hear about our product/service?

What initially attracted you to it?

What do you like and dislike about it now?

What's the one thing we could do better?

In what situation do you use our product most? 

What would you do if our product didn't exist? 

Would you recommend our product?

Once you've gathered this data, you should have a much better understanding of your current audience and their needs, and have plenty of ideas to improve your business. You may also be in for a surprise, as your initial assumptions about them could be wrong. 

But before you make any drastic changes, keep in mind that the people who are initially attracted to your product may not be your ideal customers. They may not see the benefit that you're offering, find it difficult to interact with your service, or simply prefer other alternatives. For freemium businesses, they are the ones who only use the free version of your product/app and never upgrade to a paid plan/make an in-app purchase. Trying to convince them about your value is probably not worth the effort.

Even if you're seeing a net positive relationship with your customers, you can't always be sure that they're right for you. It therefore helps to step back and examine the broader universe of people who may derive value from your product.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this essay which will examine ways to determine your ideal customer.

UX is something anyone can do. The problem is not everyone can do it well. I can undertake the visual design for a website, but I guarantee you that it will look dreadful and unprofessional.

If you learn nothing else about UX I ask you to remember these two things.

Know thy user.

You are not the user (in most cases).

If you don't know your user base, their habits and tendencies, and why they do or do not perform certain actions, then you can't be expected to design a good experience for them. Even if you are very similar to your users, remember that you are only one person and that does not define the qualities of your user base as a whole. Get to know your users and design the experience with them in mind. The role of a UXer is to have that knowledge, constantly expand it, and then design with those users in mind, crafting amazing experiences that will delight and fulfill them.

Let's look at all the possible steps a UXer might take in defining the UX of a product. These steps create the ideal process. These steps aren't always possible to complete in the real world, but we need to cover all of them so that you’re aware when you can leave out certain steps and why. Sometimes you don't necessarily leave out a step, but it is melded into another step, or replaced using a combination of experience, knowledge, and intuition.