Is your MVP design minimal and viable? ensuring everyone gets VALUE — Behavioral Design Models
This article is the first part of a series that will provide you with a set of models (simple systems to follow) that will help you get from an idea or concept to an MVP definition. Part 2 and 3 will be released in the coming weeks.
In my work as a Product Designer, I’ve seen that most products fail because:
- They miss identifying what behaviors they need their users to do to perceive the product as valuable
- They don’t have a strategy to get them to that point effectively.
- And they forget to design to provide value to each one of the roles involved in the product.
The objective of these models is to ask you the right questions for you to design centered on what matters most: driving user behavior to generate value for them.
This first article deals with Models 1, 2, and 3. You can find a detailed explanation, examples of usage, and the templates of the models at behavioraldesignmodels.com.
Product design is inherently different from research. In research, the researcher knows what behavior it is interested in driving, then designs and intervention from that point onward.
In Business, we need to take a step back; knowing what behavior to drive in your users is not straightforward. You may have a problem to solve, and you have identified a market niche, but selecting which behaviors your product will attempt to provoke in the users, in what priority, and the effort to devote to creating them makes a product live or fail. Yet, most times, we don’t think in terms of behaviors but in features.
I’ve worked with several entrepreneurs who lost sleep thinking of adoption and churn rates, adding features, tweaking things around. Of course, if you follow startups pages, this stuff is all over the place, but we often forget to consider a simpler question.
What do I need the user to do to realize that my product is worth their effort? (And I mean effort as a general concept, could be money, time, attention, etc.).
As I see it, there is one law to follow when designing a product:
This series of three models deal with this question. For each model, I will offer a short explanation of the reasons behind it and the instructions to apply it to your reality. At the end of this article, you will find a quick recipe to create each model. You can find a complete explanation, along with templates to download on each model’s page.
Model #1 Product & life — Behavioral Design Models
A good product is an ever-evolving complex system that learns from each user. In this sense, a product is very much like a biological species, each successful instance affecting the experience of the next ones. Adoption and Churn rates are like born and mortality rates; when the mortality rate overpasses born rate, extinction happens. But that’s not all; just like life, a product needs to grow, nurture and reproduce.
Users use things because using them is less troublesome than the benefits its usage provides. For example, loading the dishwasher might be a pain in the back, but it certainly beats having to hand wash every item. Moreover, each time the user performs this action, it “nurtures” his conviction that a product provides a good deal. This keeps the user engaged with a product. However, to be able to nurture effectively, a product must first grow on a user.
Living things are not born mature beings; they require a series of transformations to nurture effectively. Mammals are not even capable of processing the food they will eventually consume from the get-go. This is true for a commercial product; the product’s birth is just a desire of the user to know more. That desire alone will not be enough for the user to comprehend, let alone get any value, from the product. Therefore, the product needs to provide ways to grow on the user. Growth includes tutorials, sign up, even marketing material; it’s the “adoption process.”
A product needs a never-ending influx of users. Even the most loyal user will, eventually, churn. Users will stop paying a subscription service, buy a new car from a different company, or die. Nature solves this by spawning individuals from individuals; unfortunately, the best we can do in product design is mouth-to-mouth. Of course, you can have a team of sales or social network ads too. The point is that a product needs somebody (other than the user to be) to do something to get new users and sustain itself. These are the reproduction behaviors.
Reproduction behaviors often rely on the surplus of benefits that the nurturing behavior has accumulated. It could be money spent in campaigns from active subscriptions. Or, it could be that the product is so good a user decides to share it with his friends.
The model
My first model is a simple one, three columns (growth, nurture and reproduce) to list what behaviors are involved in each of these categories. It serves to center the design in the essential: the behaviors we need to design features for. The following models use this list as an input to expand on the minimum viable product scoping.
Write each behavior using a short title. As a prefix, I use a capital B (denoting behavior) and a capital G, N, or R to indicate its intent. For example, take the usual sign-in behavior: “Get the user to provide a way to identify him securely.” It will be referred in all my documentation as “BG-Sign Up.” This reminds all the team that we are not designing a form; we are trying to get the user to fill it as a part of getting to know the product.
Now you should know what behaviors are needed for your product to provide value (nurture), to be in the position to be able to provide value (growth), and to be offered to a new user (reproduction). These behaviors will be Key in designing features that support the basic functions of your product.
Actors Requirements — Behavioral Design Models
Different actors fulfill different roles on your product. Sometimes the one that gets more value out of it is not the one getting paid, or the user is not the one that decides what product to use. How actors relate to your product affects your design, this model will help you map those relationships.
You will hear “MVP” every couple of sentences in the startup world.
But how do you know a product design is minimal and viable? The short answer: you don’t. The truth is that before launching your product into the harsh reality of the market, there is no way to know that your product is viable. To know for sure, you need to test it.
But, it doesn’t mean you are hopeless. Most people make an educated guess and hope for the best while saving some budget for after-launch adjustments. You can use these second and third models to find the behaviors required (not necessarily sufficient) for a viable product.
Before I discussed a maximum of this method: “users must get more value out of the product than the effort they put in.” It’s true about users interacting with what you build, but it’s also true for every actor that has something to do with it. Starting with you (and your investors) looking for all of this will eventually be worth the trouble.
A user uses a product, but it is not necessarily the one who pays for it or decides to use it. For example, when a parent buys a child, a toy is paying and making the toy available to play, a way of deciding usage.
This dissociation is quite common, especially on business-to-business (B2B) products. A physician does not decide what health electronic records software they are using. The hospital board probably made the final decision to buy it out of the recommendation and technical specifications made by others. Then some supervisor notified the physician to use it from now on as part of his daily life. Does that mean we shouldn’t mind what physicians think? No.
Products have at least these three roles that make them viable, someone that pays, one that decides to use it, and someone that uses it. Sometimes this is one person, sometimes it is three.
The model
To construct this model, list in a row all the actors you have identified. I suggest adding a small user icon 👤 next to each of your actors to make them easier to identify throughout your design documentation. Think of everyone that is involved with the product, directly and indirectly. At a bare minimum, this list should include a user.
On top, in another row, list all the roles your product requires. This list should contain “Pays,” “Decides usage,” and “Uses” but might include other items such as “Recommends.” Remember, an actor can fulfill several roles, and more than one actor can play a role.
Finally, join with a line the actors with their roles. If any actor fulfills the role indirectly, you may use a dotted line to represent this. Once finished, take a look at your model, check that some actor covers every role, and try to find ways to minimize the roles or actors required.
Your next mission is to understand each actor’s motivation to fulfill this role. We will explore this in the third model.
Type of needs — Behavioral Design Models
To provide value is to solve a need or show the potential to do it. With this model, you will explore the different needs your product can help solve and understand how significant they are for your users.
Motivation
Once you have accounted for all roles and actors involved in your product and identified its necessities to succeed, you need to find out why anyone would do it. To do so, we need to know what makes each role tick. So let’s talk about motivation.
Several psychologists have dedicated themselves to the study of needs. The most popular theory is “Maslow’s pyramid” or, more technically, “the hierarchy of human needs,” described by Andrew Maslow in 1943. For this model, we will use the “ERG theory” instead. A theory that derives from Maslow’s work, developed by Clayton Alderfer in the late 1960s.
This theory reduces Maslow’s model from five to three categories: Existence, Relationship, and Growth (Growth) and proposes modifications to the relationships between needs, expanding Maslow’s hierarchical model. ERG resonates thematically with the concepts introduced in the first model, but it most importantly makes the model less complex.
“Existence needs” deals with basic needs to live (in Maslow: physiological and safety). A glass of water when you are thirsty or financial stability. It is all about what allows us to maintain our current existence.
“ Relationship needs” are social needs (in Maslow: Love/Belonging and Esteem). As humans, we need to feel part of a group and feel valued by other people. “Relationship needs” appeal to our status desires.
Finally, “ Growth needs” (in Maslow: Esteem and self-actualization) respond to that intrinsic need for personal development and to transcend.
According to ERG theory, “existence needs” come first in importance for individuals who do not have them fully covered, then “relationship needs,” and finally, at the top of the hierarchy are “growth needs.” When higher hierarchical needs are not covered, individuals redouble their efforts in a lower category. For example, an individual who does not manage to feel part of a group will put his efforts into his survival needs.
It won’t be easy to find value for all the actors. The product you envision has clear value for “the user,” but all roles are not created equal. The purpose of exploring these categories is to allow us to look for the rewards of our product that are not obvious to the naked eye.
An employee who uses software because the company requires it and receives payment for performing that action (or would stop receiving it if he did not do so). Therefore, he is covering survival needs. Someone posting on social networks fulfills their relationship needs; is looking for a connection with others. A player trying for the tenth time a level, simply because it’s fun to improve, has a “need for growth.”
Consider the case of an office worker who must be serving the public 6 hours a day, with a 30-minute break for lunch. A new tool makes this employee’s work simpler and more effective; she can now serve more people. But it does not increase her rest time nor salary, so the product does not add value for her; it does for the company.
That something is convenient or simpler to do, is not enough. Since convenience in itself, it does not generate value. However, it provides value if doing a task faster allows me to get more money or go for coffee with my colleagues.
The model
For this model, we will reuse the one constructed for the previous step (link). The goal of this exercise is to relate actors and roles to a necessity in the ERG theory. So, in the bottom part of the diagram, add the labels existence, relationships, and Growth.
For each line that relates an actor and a role, we need to find a motivation. Or, to reframe it, discover how your product provides value to this actor by promising to solve one of the ERG model needs. Going back to the mantra defined in Model #1 — Product and Life, “ Users must get more value out of the product than the effort they put in.”
Link each actor with the type of need the product solves and list them under the need title. For example, is your aiding in solving an Existence need?
Consider situations such as:
- will make it easier to make money
- will make them feel more secure
- It will help them do what they already do, but better.
The same goes for Relationships.
- Will it expand social connections
- Will it make them feel part of a group
- Will it make them feel loved
And for Growth:
- Is there something to learn
- Will it help the user transcend their lifetime
Remember that what matters most is the perceptions and not tangible realities. Theft insurance solves a need for existence; it provides safety. Even when it cannot prevent an act of theft or that the insured home ever gets broken in, the user feels reassured.
Once you have listed how your product provides value, go back to the model created in Model #1 — Product and Life. Compare your previous notes with these current needs and add the behaviors each user needs to perform to receive something from your product.
Filling these models should give you a sense of what your product requires to stay alive, what are the roles, and how it provides value to everyone involved. By now, you should have a better idea of what behaviors are key to development and why.
The next articles of the series coming soon ⏳.
Here are a set of quick steps to construct the models.
Model #1 — Life and products
- Make three columns labeled Growth, Nurture, and Reproduction
- In the middle (Nurture), list the behaviors that get users some value regularly
- Under the Growth list, all the behaviors required to be in a position to do the nurture behaviors
- Under Reproduction, list all behaviors that can make another user begin using the product
Model #2 — Actors Requirements
- List in a row all the actors you have identified.
- list all the roles your product requires ((“Pays,” “Decides usage,” and “Uses” )
- Join with a line the actors with their roles. If any actor fulfills the role indirectly, you may use a dotted line to represent this.
- Check that some actor covers every role, and try to find ways to minimize the roles or actors required.
Model #3 — Type of needs
- List your actors in a row
- Add a label for each of the ERG theory elements (Existence, Relationship, Growth)
- Link each actor with the type of need your product fulfills for them
- Update the first model with your findings!
Hi, I’m Nacho Parietti
I help design products that drive behavior at ingenious. Over the last 8 years, I have designed and optimized products, on adoption and retention, under a behavioral sciences lens.
I’ve learned and evolved some of these applied techniques during my time working for gambling and gaming industries, some from while tens of products for different types of startups, and others while translating research into real products for researchers in leading universities.
If you are interested to learn more, go to behavioraldesingmodels.com or feel free to reach out! LinkedIn / Twitter
