Everything’s a Tradeoff
That’s the most valuable systems design advice I’ve ever received, and I’ve found it applies to product management as well: that for each advantage gained, something is lost, and that loss should always be acknowledged as a part of the decision. In the case of product management for an innovative product, the amount of possible innovation is bound by how much it disturbs the habits of its audience. Google changed nothing about the user experience and improved the engine itself, allowing for widespread adoption with practically no friction. On the other hand, Segway offered a moderate advantage to walking, but broke people’s pedestrian routines so strongly that it alienated them. My strategy for allowing for easy adoption would be to analyze the incumbent product’s user experience and recreate it as closely as possible when attracting users to my product. That way, users would be made to feel the least possible amount of their status quo bias and can easily transition without the drawbacks of unfamiliarity. This can best be seen with the Prius, which altered nothing about the driving experience but used hybrid technology to massively augment the car’s fuel efficiency, allowing people to make a lifestyle change that benefited the environment without sacrificing the comfort of their routine.
Loss Aversion
Loss aversion occurs when a user feels that by moving away from the product that they’re used to, they are losing something in itself. Therefore, the new product has to massively surpass the expectations the user had for the incumbent product. Occasionally, even when a product offers a moderate improvement but requires significant behavioral change, adoption will grow consistently but slowly, which is referred to as a “long haul.” These can achieve success after enough time in the ecosystem, but that time also risks killing them, as it did with TiVo, which racked up expenses while customers turned slowly towards them. Despite being the superior product, the high behavior change necessary to adopt kept their growth from shooting up and caused their eventual failure. Essentially, to minimize loss aversion, you have two options: make it seem like as little of a change as possible, or release such a groundbreaking and beneficial change that people don’t mind learning to use it.
