The gap between how I use my product vs. how users actually use it 😅
I had shared access to a few close people before launching PostNitro's v2 Editor. Then, two weeks before, I started sending our real users an invite to test it out live.
Each call was different; for the first time, I could watch in real-time and learn from our users how they would actually use our platform.
v2 was built based on user feedback, and I attempted to improve our UI/UX accordingly. Then, when I actually saw our users using it, I realized that we still had a big gap that needed to be fixed.
As the founder, I have full knowledge of the platform and know which option is where and how to access it. Users, however, don't!
As the maker, this was quite obvious, or during testing, I had used it enough times that getting things done on the platform felt like a reflex.
The calls were different. I gave them the staging link and instructed them to try creating a carousel as they would normally.
Even though each one of them said it was a significant improvement on the v1, and that they find it easier to use.
In real-time, I would see them getting stuck on different workflows; even the gap of a few seconds that they spent thinking felt like a pinch. With v2, I made sure to highlight our already built features, and I was shocked to learn that some of them didn't even know they existed in v1.
Based on all this information, I spent the three days before the launch refining and improving further based on their feedback. For the first time, I think I actually felt like damn, how could I have missed this.
Friday night to Monday 3am, I was pushing code to main even though I had locked everything for Monday.
Choose the time from 1am to 3am on Monday, as that is the lowest traffic time we have before the week starts, and launch it!
Users loved it, and everything went smoother than expected. Haha, there were three times more praises than bugs, so it felt like a win!
This process changed my perspective. Here's what I think we, as founders, should do:
- GET USERS ON CALL EARLY
- Take feedback as feedback instead of a personal attack :D
- Instead of building with 100% knowledge or thinking that the user will easily figure it out, think that a new user with at least 30% knowledge is using it
I say 30% because we aren't the first or the last design tool that they are using. Each platform has its own flow, but at its core, everything is more or less the same, so build accordingly.
I hope this helps! :)
