Linking Product Design to Human Wants

On design utilities for digital products

The concept of utility was introduced by philosopher Jeremy Bentham in a book titled An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, first published in 1789. Bentham described utility as “property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, good, or happiness.”

In economics, utility is a measure of satisfaction upon the consumption of a product or service. Homo economicus is optimized for maximum utilities attainment. In marketing, utility creation is meant for “all things, real or imagined, which make a product or service more desirable and thus more valuable to the customer,” as defined by Dean Ellis and Lawrence Jacobs. Ellis and Jacobs identified 8 categories of marketing utilities, namely form, time, shipping, location, image, confidence, facilitating and customizing. These are things that create utilities for customers.

What about the utility creation by product design? What values can design activities create? How can design enhance product acceptability and adoption?

Let’s use the above-stated Ellis and Jacobs’ definition and repurpose it for product design:

Utility creation by design can be defined as all things, tangibles or intangibles, which make a product more acceptable and thus more valuable to the user.

The definition highlights the two desired consequences of a good product design i.e. product acceptability and user-perceived value. Acceptability is the consequence of user decision to use (and continue using) a product because using it leads to satisfaction of a need. Being valuable matters, as it can command premium prices. For free-to-use product, higher perceived value makes it a preferred choice over competitors.

There are three category of utilities for product design. The three are functional, usability and experience. The followings outline each function and its user benefits.

Functional

Useful things are, according to Austrian economist Carl Menger, “things that can be placed in a causal connection with the satisfaction of human needs.” Product value depends on how well the product solves user problems and fulfills user needs. The more effective a product is in getting the job done, the more likely it is valuable to users. If the product is the right solution for the right problem for the right user, then product-market fit becomes attainable.

The situated product function is rooted in the philosophy of pragmatism. The philosophical tradition postulates that object or idea is valuable only if it is useful and produces practical consequences. Whatever works, hence its worth. So, in order to design useful products, designers place users at the center of everything they do — co-iterate designs with users, generate hypotheses for user testing and perform prototype evaluations with users. The desired outcome is the creation of an effective tool to solve user problems and enrich lives. Or simply, being useful.

Purpose: To identify a right problem to ideate a right solution and ship the solution

User utility: Able to use the solution (product) to solve problems and enrich daily lives.

Usability

A product may have cutting-edge feature set but that doesn’t mean it is also easy to use. Without usability, users cannot experience the practical consequences. Usability is defined as “the capability to be used by humans easily and effectively”, wrote Brian Shackel. Not only meeting user needs, a product must provide quality of use. To specify and measure usability, Shackel identified four criteria that must be achieved in order to create usable product. The four are:

• Effectiveness i.e. “How well user perform a range of tasks using the product

• Learnability i.e. “How soon before a user starts using the advanced features?”,

• Flexibility i.e “How does an app perform in areas with different internet signal strength?”

• Attitude i.e. “Does the app frustrate user?”

Purpose: To design product with quality of use

User utility: Can master the use of a product, with minimal cognitive efforts and time, and start to benefit from it.

Experience

The experiential aspects of a product have been getting plenty of attention in the past decade. Since the PC revolution began the early 1980s, digital products became tools of mass consumption. Today, we’re living in a world where “there’s an app for that too!” When digital products are exclusively used in office environment, productivity is paramount. When the masses use digital products in social environments, in addition to functional value, they seek a hedonic experience such as, excitement, pleasure, fun, enjoyable, innovativeness, and originality. An experience is a consequence of product usage, embedded in contexts of experiencer’s memories, current feelings and cultural settings.

Purpose: To produce positive product perception and judgement.

User utility: Able to trust a product to get the job done, with the absence of frustration and unhappiness.

This is an attempt to identify that three primary design utilities. The framework links product creation and design activities to user needs. It aim to provide glimpses into the needle-movers of product adoption and acceptability. The raison d'être of product features tend to be business-oriented i.e. revenue growth, transaction value and daily actives (and rightly so). But to ensure that the features are metric movers depends on user acceptability. So, before adding features, always ask “Are users more willing to accept (or continue to accept) the product following the addition?”

References:

Bentham, J. (1907). An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Retrieved 02/11/2020 from the internet: https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/278

Ellis, D.S. & Jacobs, L.W. (1977). Marketing Utilities: A New Look. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science Winter, 5(1), 21-26.

Menger, C. (1976). Principles of Economics. Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Shackel, B. (2009). Usability – Context, framework, definition, design and evaluation. Interacting with Computers, 21(5-6), December, 339–346. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intcom.2009.04.007