This chapter addresses the following issues:
O Why a clear value proposition is a prerequisite to great UX design (see
page 4).
O Why products designed by and for innovators aren’t necessarily right for
general consumers (see page 7).
O Why consumers want products, not tools (see page 14).
O Why it’s important to design the service offering around a product (see
page 33).
O How business models can shape UX (see page 35).
O How digital business models may start to appear in real world products
(see page 37).
Making good products
What is productization?
Productization is the extent to which the supplier makes the user value of the
product explicit and easy to understand. Compelling products don’t just look
good or otherwise fuel some underlying need for status (although those things
are often important). They make it immediately apparent to their intended
audience that they do a thing of real value for them: preferably something new
than serves a previously unmet need.
Nest is probably the most famous IoT productization success story. Consumers
were resigned to thermostats and smoke alarms being ugly, annoying boxes
with usability flaws. It hadn’t occurred to most people that they could be
better. Nest products promise to do the job better than most of the competition,
in the form of attractive and desirable hardware that users are happy to have on
show at home (see figure 4.1). O f course, they are premium products with a
premium price tag. The point here is not that all products should be expensive,
but that a good product should fulfill a clear need for the target audience, with
a usable and appealing design. This is the product’s value proposition: the
user’s understanding of what the product does for them and why they
might want it.