iPhone: going beyond what users want now

Apple's new iPhone is a perfect example of going beyond what you can get out of customer research by simply asking people what they want. Most phone users would not say they wanted a finger touch screen that lets them use multiple fingers and that covers the whole face of the phone and replaces the keyboard. Most users would not say they also want their phone to be their video iPod. Most phone users would not not say they wanted widgets to tell them the weather and such. AT the same time, most iPod users would not say they wanted their iPod to have phone capabilities.

Given this, you could not arrive at the product design for the iPhone (something everyone seems to be jonesing for now that it's been announced) by simply asking existing phone or iPod users what additional features they would want in their current device. The result of that question would just be iPods and a phones with more features.

The problem with simply asking customers what they want is that most people have very little imagination. They think incrementally. I want a phone but with a bigger screen and easier to use buttons, a customer might say. Even the technology press who get paid to speculate about what Apple might come out with next didn't anticipate how much a of a leap ahead the iPhone would be.

So am I arguing against the notion of User>Driven product development? Me? Not at all. You can drive product development through user input in many ways. Asking users what they want is not usually one of them, though.

I imagine that Apple did what I would do if I had set myself the task of revolutionizing the phone. I would interview a lot of phone users about their current phones - what they actually use it for day to day, why they bought it, what frustrates them about it, what problems it solves for them. I would also ask them what other things they carry around with them and then ask the same questions about those things. And I suspect I would have uncovered unmet needs that could have led to something like the iPhone.

For instance, if they had interviewed me, they would have found that I carry a Web-enabled phone but that I don't use it for the Web because the software the input process completely suck. They would also have found that I carry an iPod for music and a PSP for video and games. I also carry a laptop but my biggest frustration with it is that it isn't connected to the net when I am away from the office or home. And they would have found that I carry this all in various pockets and a backpack and that I wish I didn't have to carry all of that. Ah ha! Perhaps a single device that combined these things and was always connected would be the right approach.

This is a simple example, but I bet something like this process went on at Apple. I'm equally sure that was only the beginning of the process. How did they design that beautiful multi-touch screen, for instance? I imagine they hooked up with real smart phone and PDA users and watched them closely as they used their devices, asking them to explain as they did things what they were trying to accomplish, why, and how they were going about it. By watching closely how people attempt to do things (and often fail), you can learn a lot about how to design something better. It's a lot like paper prototyping but it uses (someone else's) existing product as the prototype.

If they'd watched me use my Sony Clie PDA a few years back, they'd have seen me struggle with the stylus and squint at the tiny thumbnails of PowerPoints in email attachments and they would have set about designing better ways to input text and to make the best use of limited screen real estate. As a result they might have started thinking along the lines of multi-touch and the pinching and tapping that expands and shrinks images and web pages on the screen.

There's this idea that Apple's products are so great because Steve Jobs is such a genius or because he's such a jerk that he insists on things being really perfect before they're launched. Those things may be true, but I think the real reason Apple's products are so often perceived as both revolutionary and very well-designed is that they are User>Driven.

Links

iPhone on Apple's website:

http://www.apple.com/iphone/

PC Magazine's iPhone market analysis:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2081108,00.asp 

PC Magazine hands on with the iPhone:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2082265,00.asp 

Comments

[Bruce McCarthy]

Great Gearlog article on the target market for the iPhone and why it is no threat to Crackberry.

http://www.gearlog.com/2007/01/the_iphone_no_threat_to_blackb.php

Good comments on iPhone vs. Blackberry and on getting at customers' real needs by Patty Seybold.

http://outsideinnovation.blogs.com/pseybold/2007/01/apples_iphone_r.html

[Carl]

They should be user-driven, after all users are the target for buy them :) Having said that, you're right, most users don't really know what they want and it takes extensive research to find out what you need to not just make the next iteration of a device, but to actually jump the curve in terms of invigorating a very competitive marketplace.

[Glenn]

I enjoyed reading your blog. I just read that Brits vote iPhone 8th greatest invention. I love my Iphone.