You conducted extensive user interviews. You verified the pain points and your solution resonates. But when you launch… crickets. If this sounds like you or your team, it’s time to test your product entry points.

Often, the core value proposition of the product is correct, but users don’t understand the value prop at first glance. Just as damning, they may have a problem activating. I like to run two tests when this happens:

Remember the mechanic from Seinfeld?

If you’re working on a new product, there’s a good chance that—like the mechanic—you’re far more obsessed with your product than your customers are.

You may obsess over every detail. Your customers might not.

If you find most of your target demographic shrugging their shoulders, it’s worth considering whether you actually empathize with them, or if you just think you do. To you, the problem you’re solving is hugely important. But, too often, it’s trivial to your target users. They may care about something else entirely.

To them, the washer fluid is fine.

Not everybody can or should become a manager.

I talk to too many professionals who feel like becoming a manager is the inevitable next step in their career.

They dread this because they’d much rather be coding, designing, or doing whatever it is they already do.

My answer to them: keep doing that.

Managing people isn’t the only way to earn more. Titles aren’t the only path to more influence.

Unless you really, truly want the responsibility of mentoring others, providing ongoing, candid feedback, and helping the people who report to you succeed, you shouldn’t manage.

If that doesn’t describe you, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Doug Collins wrote an interesting article proposing a formula for valuing UX.

In a nutshell, Collins argues that the average UX designer eliminates at least 25% of the rework that developers need to do. This means hiring a UX designer is nearly always a risk-free investment.

I could quibble with the 25% number, but it essentially feels right, at least from an order of magnitude standpoint.

But, to be honest, I think Collins is missing the point. Most products don’t fail because of costly engineering rework. They fail because they don’t solve real problems for their users.

So good UX designers don’t just design features. They design the entire product, making sure that it’s actually solving the problems its users need solved.

This is the difference between a beautiful product nobody uses and an ugly one that people love. *Cough* Craigslist *Cough* It’s hard to put a value on that type of work, but it’s clearly more than a 25% cost savings.

If your product’s reporting doesn’t give users actionable data, it might as well not be there.

“What will they do with this information?” is probably the only relevant question when designing a new report.

If the answer starts and stops with read the report, you’re doing it wrong.

Users don’t want data. They want insights. Users don’t need reports. They need answers.

Take a look at your product’s reporting and ask yourself if you could actually improve your performance based solely on the metrics it provides, a testable hypothesis, and some elbow grease.

If not, it’s time to redesign the report.

It always astounds me how few companies are comfortable saying “this isn’t for you.”

Your product will never please 100% of the people 100% of the time. Trying to make your social network less social for the people who don’t want to interact with others is a mistake. Trying to make a multiplayer-focused game fantastic for single-player aficionados is a losing strategy.

The best products strive to be fantastic for a limited set of use cases, and don’t worry about the rest.

Sure, other people will use your product. But Product Design is a game of tradeoffs and sacrifices. Let the users who want something else go somewhere else that can provide it better than you.

Local news sites and Top 10 roundup sites are really pushing the envelope on who can include the least content and the most bullshit on a single page.

If you can create the content for most of your site without any actual expertise or technology beyond Google or a camera phone, it’s probably not that useful. Presumably, this is why Google prioritizes long-form content in search results, but longer content isn’t necessarily better content. Google may actually be encouraging bullshit rather than minimizing it.

We need a better algorithm for measuring content value. “Did this actually help you?” may be the most crucial question in the next 10 years of search.

The shirt you ordered isn’t the same color it was in the picture. The backpack you bought is already ripping at the seams.

If you’re anything like me, you spend way too much time researching purchases online. You want to make sure the products you buy are high-quality. You need to know they fit your needs. And you want to be positive they’ll last.

We all know the feeling. You’ve waited all week. You rush home and tear open the package, only to discover some cheap, chintzy junk inside. What a disappointment.

Today, my team and I launched Hipmatic, a website that makes researching purchases easier by crowdsourcing recommendations from people who’ve bought the same types of products you’re looking for.

We’ve already seen some really good questions and product recommendations from our little community, and it’s nice to see such a positive reaction from our friends in the startup community. So check out Hipmatic, and let me know if you have any feedback!

Skillshare vs Udemy: what’s the difference, and which is better?

I’ve written about Skillshare and Udemy before, and a few of you have asked me if I prefer Skillshare over Udemy.

I actually use both, so here’s an unbiased breakdown of the pros and cons of each.