Product Managers who think like a Designer

In my recent 'News You Can Use' digest, I referenced an article on 'Scaling Your Ux Strategy' which talked about Lean Ux.  In my experience, digitally advanced organizations do really well at Lean Ux because they embed design thinking across all levels of the organization.  I saw this first hand at Walgreens. Whether you were a product manager, a copywriter, an engineer or a business analyst, you learned to tell good design from bad. We still had some amazing Ux talent to help us do things right but they had partners and sounding boards in every part of the organization.

In this post, I want to walk you through three design principles I use on a consistent basis during Product Roadmap Planning:

1. MINIMIZE FRICTION: I recently went for a morning jog with my kids intending to get them smoothies along the way.  About two miles in, I realized I had left home without my wallet so smoothies were not an option. McDonalds came to my rescue.  I know my cc number (yes, I am that person!) so I simply added my cc to my mobile wallet, walked into a McD's and got my kids the opposite of a healthy breakfast. They were thrilled nonetheless and I officially jumped on the mobile payment bandwagon.

Two words come to mind when I think of this story: frictionless experience.  Friction is anything that makes the user's task on hand harder.  It ranges from simple things like having to wait for a 'Forgot Password' email in place of on site password resets and can be as complex as needing a physical receipt every time a customer needs to return something at a retailer.

McDonalds facilitated a frictionless experience for me by allowing mobile payments. This will always be memorable for me.  Companies that are quick to remove friction are winning. Study UBER, Sephora, Walgreens, Chase Bank for a masterclass in this subject.

2. MINIMIZE COGNITIVE LOAD: Anyone who has ever shopped on Zappos knows what cognitive load is.  Zappos is GREAT if I know exactly what I want.  But when I am just browsing, the "endless aisles" with very little visual appeal leave me completely confused. The Zappos end to end experience has always been great but browsing that aids discovery is dismal.

To minimize cognitive load, I look for three things:

1. Keep it simple.  Visual clutter increases cognitive load so does really long copy.  What information does the user need at a glance vs. in the details?  Can an 8th grader or someone not familiar with your company understand the terms you are using?  Look to create pages that look clean and easy to use.

2. Let users do what they are already familiar with.  Amazon has paved the way for us already.  I expect my cart button in the upper right hand corner.  I expect my hamburger menu on the top left. When you expect users to learn a new design pattern, the chances of success are almost always lower.

3. Reduce the number of decisions / inputs users need to make.  How much information do you need before someone can initiate a chat?  How much information do you need in order to create an account? What are things you need upfront vs. things you can learn later in the process?

Simplicity is complex.  Google's Search Page, Amazon's one click ordering, UBER's ride hailing app, the list goes on...

3. MINIMIZE TIME TO COMPLETE A TASK: About once a year, I go to Oriental Trading's website to order favors for my kids birthday parties. I love that Oriental Trading has a guest checkout option. I abhor creating accounts on websites I don't use on an every day basis and I appreciate Oriental Trading solving this problem for me.

Deposit a check with a picture on my phone.  Yes! Refill a prescription by scanning the barcode.  Yes! Websites that load really fast? Yes!  Per a DoubleClick study from 2016, "53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if  pages take longer than 3 seconds to load." Sounds about right for me...

Every product manager should start looking at the websites / products they use through a design lens. Identifying good and bad design outside your organization will definitely make you more valuable inside your organization.