Transcript: Ask the UXperts: What UX Practitioners Need to Know About Growth Hacking with Laura Klein

Transcript: Ask the UXperts: What UX Practitioners Need to Know About Growth Hacking with Laura Klein

Laura Klein - Growth Hacking for UX Practitioners
Summary:

Today we had the pleasure of hosting Laura Klein (Principal at Users Know and author of UX for Lean Startups) in our brand new Ask the UXperts Slack channel. Laura was full of wit, personality and insights about how user Experience and growth hacking share many goals and priorities. If you didn’t make the session, make sure you read the transcript.

Today we had the pleasure of hosting Laura Klein (Principal at Users Know and author of UX for Lean Startups) in our brand new Ask the UXperts Slack channel to talk about what UX practitioners need to know about growth and ‘growth hacking’.

User Experience and growth hacking share a strong focus on identifying ideal customers, prioritising the customer experience, experimenting/iterating, and measuring success, so we were really excited to pick Laura’s brain today.

Laura was full of wit, personality and insights; “It’s not enough for us to build stuff that people like. We also have to think about how people will find out about it and share it and how it will grow. It’s a huge part of being good at building products” she said in her opening statement.

If you didn’t make the session because you didn’t know about it, make sure you join our community to get updates of upcoming sessions. If you’re interested in seeing what we discussed, or you want to revisit your own questions, here is a full transcript of the chat.

Transcript:

hawk
2016-04-06 02:24
Session starts: 3pm PDT Wed 20 April (8am AEST Thurs 21 April)
You can use the command /tz help to get time zone conversion assistance here on Slack

lauraklein
2016-04-20 21:46
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hawk
2016-04-20 21:58
Welcome everyone. :simple_smile:

hawk
2016-04-20 21:58
Feel free to introduce yourselves – we’ll be kicking off in a couple of minutes.

hawk
2016-04-20 21:58
I’ll be moderating the session today, and keeping you all in line :wink:

latteoptimism
2016-04-20 21:59
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hawk
2016-04-20 21:59
: we’re kicking off the session with Laura in 1 minute…

hawk
2016-04-20 21:59
@latteoptimism: Welcome :simple_smile:

lukcha
2016-04-20 21:59
Hello all! It’s good to see you all here for our first ATU via Slack.

latteoptimism
2016-04-20 22:00
Thank you

canuckinluck
2016-04-20 22:00
Good morning Laura & thanks to Hawk for doing the hard yards behind the scenes. This is the first time I’ve used slack this way so pretty happy to be on for it

drewgallo
2016-04-20 22:00
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lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:00
Hello, everyone!

chadc
2016-04-20 22:00
Hi everyone.

ruth.westervelt
2016-04-20 22:00
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rich.melcher
2016-04-20 22:01
Checking in from San Diego; stoked to be a part of the convo.

edmikos
2016-04-20 22:01
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edmikos
2016-04-20 22:01
hi all

hawk
2016-04-20 22:01
It’s 10am by my clock, so that means we’re good to go. Great to see you all here.

natalie.eustace
2016-04-20 22:01
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lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:01
who has a question?

wendy
2016-04-20 22:01
Hi everyone

hawk
2016-04-20 22:01
Haha, I’ll run a quick intro and then we’ll kick off

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2016-04-20 22:02
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hawk
2016-04-20 22:02
For those of you that aren’t familiar with the format of these sessions, they?re pretty easy.

hawk
2016-04-20 22:02
You ask questions, Laura answers them. Jump in at any time and if things get busy, I’ll queue the questions for Laura to to come back to.

hawk
2016-04-20 22:02
Then we publish a full transcript of the session on http://uxmastery.com early next week so you can go back over things in detail.

hawk
2016-04-20 22:02
So, first up I’ll into Laura and the topic, and then we’ll get into it.

hawk
2016-04-20 22:02
First, a couple of links

hawk
2016-04-20 22:02

hawk
2016-04-20 22:02
Laura is Principal at Users Know http://www.usersknow.com/

hawk
2016-04-20 22:03

hawk
2016-04-20 22:03
Today’s topic is one that is particularly close to my heart. we’re talking ?What UXers need to know about growth?.

hawk
2016-04-20 22:03
The cross over between UX and growth/CRO practices is pretty strong, so I’m really excited to pick Laura’s brain today

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2016-04-20 22:03
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hawk
2016-04-20 22:04
So @lauraklein I’ll throw things over to you now for a brief intro to the topic, and then we’ll kick off question time :simple_smile:

hawk
2016-04-20 22:04
And thanks so much for joining us today

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:04
Sure. Happy to be here.

sandyho7
2016-04-20 22:04
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lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:04
I got interested in growth after a couple of startups where I worked built awesome products that were loved by literally dozens of people.

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2016-04-20 22:05
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elshaddai
2016-04-20 22:05
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lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:05
It’s not enough for us to build stuff that people like. We also have to think about how people will find out about it and share it and how it will grow. It’s a huge part of being good at building products.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:06
Also, I think that there is just this enormous cross over between things like good user research practices and ?growth hacking.? It’s much easier to growth hack a great product. It’s much easier to come up with good growth strategies if we understand our ideal users. etc.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:06
anyhoodle, who has a question?

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2016-04-20 22:07
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lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:07
a warning: there is an excellent chance that the answer to every question will be some variant on ?talk to your damn users”

hawk
2016-04-20 22:07
?several people are typing? – love it

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:07
oh, I see @tomkerwin is here, cheating on his other Slack group.

sandyho7
2016-04-20 22:08
what is the most ridiculous misunderstanding/expectation you have come across in regards to growth hacking

sandyho7
2016-04-20 22:08
to clarify- i think people use ?buzz words? when they brief clients

sandyho7
2016-04-20 22:08
so a manager might say ? i want to see growth hacking on xxx project”

ruth.westervelt
2016-04-20 22:08
too many buzzwords going around!

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:09
@sandyho7: I love this question because I could answer it in like a thousand ways and be right every time. I think the most annoying one I get FROM growth hackers is that they can come up with good hypotheses of things to try based entirely on quant data.

sandyho7
2016-04-20 22:09
and they have no idea what they are asking

tomkerwin
2016-04-20 22:09
@lauraklein: RUMBLED!

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:09
The most annoying one I see ABOUT growth hacking is the idea that, because it has the word ?hacking?, that it has to be somehow shady or trick users into doing things they don’t want.

tomkerwin
2016-04-20 22:09
Hope you don’t mind I’m stalking you :simple_smile:

hawk
2016-04-20 22:10
So regarding your FROM one @lauraklein ? you?re saying that?s simply not true? It takes more than hard data?

elshaddai
2016-04-20 22:10
What is more likely to spur growth in a lean environment: a user-centric designer or a market-focused product manager?

wendy
2016-04-20 22:10
What would be a good definition of growth hacking?

sandyho7
2016-04-20 22:10
(can that good definition be in layman?s terms?)

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:11
@hawk it takes a lot more than hard data. Quant tells you what?s going on with your users. Qual tells you why it?s happening. You?ll get much better ideas about things to try if you do qual along with the quant.

hawk
2016-04-20 22:11
Hearing you.

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2016-04-20 22:12
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lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:12
@elshaddai: I’m not sure about that. I think the thing that spurs growth in any environment is a commitment by the team to focus on understanding what attracts users and what keeps them around.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:13
@wendy: growth hacking is basically just a marketing technique that uses quantitative experimentation to accelerate growth of the user base.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:13
?Growth? is the actual growth of the active user base.

paddyg
2016-04-20 22:13
What are your thoughts on tools like FullStory – is this a good lean method for understanding what your users are doing, or is there still too much “why”?

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:13
you can have growth without growth hacking.

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2016-04-20 22:13
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lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:14
@paddyg: I haven’t used FullStory, so I don’t have an opinion on it.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:14
@paddyg: Lean Startup stresses understanding what your users are doing. That?s like the whole first half of the book. I’m not sure why people think that Lean Startup and user research aren’t compatible.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:15
You can’t Learn without doing some forms of user research, and that?s a third of the Build->Measure->Learn loop.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:15
do you mean ?cheap? rather than ?lean??

paddyg
2016-04-20 22:15
Well, cheap and lean on time.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:16
so, fast and cheap?

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:16
Yeah, I have a bunch of methods for doing that stuff in my first book.

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2016-04-20 22:16
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lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:16
But, to be clear, I am strongly of the opinion that user research almost always saves time.

tomkerwin
2016-04-20 22:17
@lauraklein: how much user research is enough?

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:17
@tomkerwin: Until you see patterns clearly enough to make the decision that the user research was supposed to inform.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:17
But I’ll be honest, I’m always tempted to respond ?seven? to questions like that. :stuck_out_tongue:

tomkerwin
2016-04-20 22:17
:smile:

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:18
Seven user researches is enough.

lukcha
2016-04-20 22:18
Haha

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:18
I mean, that should be enough for anybody, really.

wendy
2016-04-20 22:18
So that means that first we need to be clear about what we want to find out with the research

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:18
@wendy Yep! Exactly.

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2016-04-20 22:18
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wendy
2016-04-20 22:18
And have the team on the same page

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:18
In an ideal world.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:19
:wink:

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:19
We don’t know exactly WHAT we’ll learn, but we should know the sorts of questions we want to answer.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:19
Otherwise, there?s no good way to pick methodologies or questions or anything, really

wendy
2016-04-20 22:19
Any tips on how to achieve that with your team?

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:19
Read Tomer Sharon?s book It’s Our Research.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:19
he addresses that.

wendy
2016-04-20 22:20
Ok, thanks :grinning:

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:20
As much as I hate calling them ?Google? design sprints (since design sprints have been done for a long time), I think they have some interesting points about how to bring research into the team.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:21
Involve the team in research, either in person or by video, is the basic idea.

tomkerwin
2016-04-20 22:22
@lauraklein: Any tips on what to do when the user research all indicates that the new users don’t trust your website?

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2016-04-20 22:22
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lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:22
I liked making video clip rolls of specific problems I?d seen users have. I found those to be spectacularly effective.

chadc
2016-04-20 22:22
@lauraklein: How does growth hacking fit into the project development cycle? Any up front work or does it all happen post launch?

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:22
@tomkerwin: you need to figure out WHY they don’t trust their website and what sorts of things they DO trust.

lukcha
2016-04-20 22:22
And what are the main pressures that are placed on a UX role within a team that is growth hacking?

paddyg
2016-04-20 22:23
“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion. Without good interpretation of the data, you’re just another source of noise.”
I like this view, but struggle to make good sense of data in our lean startup. What are some of the best ways to get your head around data re: UX?

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2016-04-20 22:23
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lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:23
@chadc: ooh, interesting question. I feel like growth hacking is like UX. You can’t sprinkle it on at the end. A lot of it is getting a really good idea of who your ideal user is and where they hang out and what messaging they care about, and that can all be done very early.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:25
@lukcha: I think that the UX person often needs to keep bringing the ?why? back into growth hacking. We need to figure out why users are doing what they?re doing and then come up with better hypotheses about how to affect user behavior through design.

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2016-04-20 22:25
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lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:25
We need to keep people from just throwing crap at the wall and seeing if it sticks.

lukcha
2016-04-20 22:26
What “qualitative metrics” do you find most useful at times like that?

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:26
@paddyg: what sorts of problems are you having making sense of data? Quant is exactly like qual. You don’t just collect a bunch of it and hope it makes sense. You measure things you want to understand better. Before you collect any data, quant or qual, ask yourself, ?what would I do differently if I had this information?”

jmayura
2016-04-20 22:27
Sorry I am late but glad that I made it :simple_smile:

lukcha
2016-04-20 22:27
Welcome @jmayura

hawk
2016-04-20 22:27
@jmayura: No stress. :simple_smile: Jump in with questions at any point. Full transcript up on http://uxmastery.com next week

jmayura
2016-04-20 22:27
Thanks.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:28
@lukcha: I’m going to be extremely pedantic here. I don’t like the concept of ?qualitative metrics.? I think metrics are quantitative. That said, you need to do things like track your onboarding funnel and see where people are falling out and then devise qualitative research to understand why they?re leaving.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:28
You might also do things like focus on messaging, in order to understand what users find appealing about your product and why they might use it.

hawk
2016-04-20 22:29
And you?d figure that out by asking existing customers?

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:29
You?ll also want to do some basic Intent to Buy and Intent to Solve research, in order to understand what gets people to adopt a new product like yours.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:29
Intent to Buy and Intent to Solve are covered a bit here: http://boxesandarrows.com/intent-to-solve/

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:30
@hawk: You can find stuff like this out by talking to existing customers, former customers, potential customers? You?ll learn something different from all of them.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:30
I love talking to people who have stopped using the product. I mean, I don’t love it, it?s awful, but it?s extremely useful.

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2016-04-20 22:30
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tomkerwin
2016-04-20 22:31
@lauraklein: have you come across Amy Hoy, and what do you think about her approach to ethnography?

hawk
2016-04-20 22:31
Welcome @johnlacey ? great to see you again.

johnlacey
2016-04-20 22:31
Hi Hawk. Thanks. This is my first foray into Slack. Interesting stuff.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:31
@tomkerwin: I haven’t read a ton of Amy, but I think everything I?ve read of hers I?ve generally agreed with. I’m not sure what her specific approach to ethnography is.

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2016-04-20 22:31
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tomkerwin
2016-04-20 22:33
OK I was just intrigued because she takes a strong stance that’s quite anti-Lean. But she makes a whole ton of sense too. I don’t want to throw any babies out with any bathwater though.

sandyho7
2016-04-20 22:33
@lauraklein: if you don’t have access to users to do research, and the next best thing is talking to internal staff who deal with the users (clients), how risky do you feel the insights will be (having gone through an extra set of ?filters? so to speak)

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:33
huh. Well, I’m a big fan of both ethnography and Lean Startup.

sandyho7
2016-04-20 22:34
(or if you don’t have access to your actual users and have already done a fair share of online stalking), what other methods have you come across

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:34
@sandyho7: great question. I?ve used internal people as a proxy for users quite a bit, and I?ve found it helpful. You need to phrase the questions in a way that accounts for bias.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:34
In other words, you need to focus on actual user behavior and stories rather than asking for opinions. That sort of thing.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:35
but I?d also ask, why don’t you have access to your actual users?

chadc
2016-04-20 22:35
@lauraklein: sounds like growth hacking aligns very well with content strategy. Do you find your work overlapping with the CS?

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:35
because, obvs, you?ll learn more by talking to them, so I?d fight for access.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:35
@chadc: oh my, yes! I would say that content marketing (which is an aspect of content strategy, I think) is one of my favorite ?growth hacks.”

sandyho7
2016-04-20 22:36
haha yes i completely agree; the usual time & money constraints in a workplace which is still slowly easing into UX!

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:36
which also is a great way of proving that just because we call it ?growth hacking? doesn’t mean it?s easy! Content marketing is hard and takes a long time, but it?s super useful and pays off well.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:36
@sandyho7: again, good user research saves time in SO MANY WAYS.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:36
you?re way more likely to build something people want, for example.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:37
I reject the concept that user research takes time.

tomkerwin
2016-04-20 22:37
SO MUCH YES

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:37
It also prevents a lot of arguing in meetings

sandyho7
2016-04-20 22:37
well let?s say it wasn’t requested but I decided it was integral

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:38
all that said, I?d say you should also talk to the folks who talk to the users.

sandyho7
2016-04-20 22:38
so im trying to look for any way possible to sneak some in and prove my point

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:38
got it.

sandyho7
2016-04-20 22:38
i got some people on board but waiting to convert some decision makers

sandyho7
2016-04-20 22:39
thanks for doing this btw its really useful :smiley:

hawk
2016-04-20 22:39
@lauraklein: Can you elaborate on content marketing?

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:39
Happy to help. :simple_smile:

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:39
@hawk: sure. Content marketing is a form of building an audience by giving away free, useful content.

jmayura
2016-04-20 22:40
This is my first time but is this meeting also voice enabled ?

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:40
For example, in 2009, I started a design blog. I blogged for a few years and then turned it into speaking and book deals.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:40
that was content marketing of a sort.

hawk
2016-04-20 22:40
@jmayura: Text only, I’m afraid.

jmayura
2016-04-20 22:40
Ok.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:41
The Mint blog is the canonical example of starting a blog to give away information and build an audience of folks who were interested in the topic.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:41
Mattermark does a brilliant job of this.

hawk
2016-04-20 22:41
@lauraklein: Got it. The idea is to get eyes on the page with great (free) content, and then funnel those readers.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:41
Yep. You?re reaching out to people who are generally interested in the thing that you do. You?re not ?marketing? your product. You?re not writing about your product. You?re establishing yourself as an expert in the area that your product inhabits.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:41
It’s a ton of work.

chadc
2016-04-20 22:42
@lauraklein: did you use the analytics of your blog to adjust the topics you posted based on the most popular posts?

paddyg
2016-04-20 22:42
That makes a lot of sense.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:42
@chadc You know, I?ve considered it, but I have a slightly different approach to the kinds of content that give away.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:43
I generally know which posts are the most popular, but I don’t have a big enough audience to do too much a/b testing and whatnot.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:43
also, I have this terrible habit of only wanting to write the things I want to write.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:43
Which means, if I found out that all of you wanted to know about something specific but I didn’t want to write about it, I just wouldn’t.

tomkerwin
2016-04-20 22:43
@lauraklein: What mindset are you in when writing? Who do you use as the person you’re writing to?

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:44
@tomkerwin: drunk.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:44
or angry.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:44
generally one of the two.

sandyho7
2016-04-20 22:44
haha your mindset or the person you?re writing to

hawk
2016-04-20 22:44
Hahaha, love it.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:44
@sandyho7: both

chadc
2016-04-20 22:44
But you could fill a book with popular content and be fairly certain of its success based on the data?

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2016-04-20 22:44
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tomkerwin
2016-04-20 22:44
Haha!

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:45
@chadc: that would be lovely. I will say this?I do tend to base my writing on questions I get and problems I see in my consulting.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:46
So, in that way, I’m doing a lot of qualitative research. But I freely admit it?s all anecdata.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:47
The new book, coming out in September, is full of workshop activities that I?ve run with real teams based on things they?re struggling with.

sandyho7
2016-04-20 22:47
@lauraklein: in all seriousness, not writing about things you don’t like is in its own way a statement of your character/values- do you think this approach works for companies/brands from all industries?

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:47
Often, they happened because I was in a room with folks and we needed to figure out a way to get them to solve a problem, so I?d make up an activity and then refine it over time with other teams who had the same problems.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:48
@sandyho7: it?s an excellent question. there are a couple of ways to think about customer acquisition.
1. you can endlessly refine your messaging to get the most users.
2. you can be yourself and trust that you?ll attract the right users.

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2016-04-20 22:48
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lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:49
Number 2 works well if you?re extremely lucky and just happen to appeal to a lot of people OR if you don’t need to generate a huge amount of traffic.

sandyho7
2016-04-20 22:49
the latter is a big leap of faith (esp if you have a shaky brand identity)

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:49
My consulting business is very very small. I need a very small number of clients. I don’t need millions of readers, nor would I know what to do with them if I had them.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:49
It also sort of depends on who you are.

sandyho7
2016-04-20 22:49
fair point

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:50
I look back at my earlier writing, and it was more formal (slightly). As I let more of my personality come through, I think it became more engaging.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:50
That is because I am delightful.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:50
So, you know, be delightful.

lukcha
2016-04-20 22:50
Do you see any difference between designing for acquisition and designing for experience generally?

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:51
More to the point, there?s a small cadre of people who find me entertaining and useful, and that?s enough. I don’t have to delight everybody.

oddencreative
2016-04-20 22:51
“I don’t have to delight everybody.? Alan Cooper pivot…

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:51
@lukcha: well, acquisition (and also engagement, which is a huge part of making sure that you?re not pouring people into a leaky funnel) is generally going to be focused on the new user experience.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:52
@oddencreative: and to be fair, if I tried to delight everybody, I would fail miserably, so it?s easier to just be me. And I’m incredibly lazy.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:53
@lukcha: focusing on the first time user experience means we have to have a really strong idea of how to predict someone will become a user.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:54
Oh, last way in which designing for growth is different is that we often need to think about the experience before and after product use.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:55
not just ?how will really motivated people use my product?? but ?how will I motivate people to use it?? ?where do they hang out when making decisions about what product to use?? ?How will I communicate its value?? ?How will I bring people back?? etc.

tomkerwin
2016-04-20 22:55
@lauraklein: I find you delightful. Angry and drunk, but delightful.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:55
@tomkerwin: thank you, Tom. The trick is to know your audience.

tomkerwin
2016-04-20 22:55
LOL

samatjain
2016-04-20 22:56
has joined #ask_laura_klein

hawk
2016-04-20 22:56
@samatjain: Hi Samat. we’re close to wrapping up I’m afraid! If you have a question, jump in now. :simple_smile:

dust
2016-04-20 22:56
@lauraklein: For a large website with a huge varied user base (20yr olds to 80 yr olds) would you suggest that more testing sessions would be needed to get better insights? We’ve made changes based on testing sessions which have not made any notable impacts.

dust
2016-04-20 22:57
But those sessions only involved about 8 or so users

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:58
@dust: It depends strongly on what you?re trying to learn. But I?d say this?.20 year olds to 80 year olds don’t necessarily make your user base terribly varied. I say that because I loathe demographic personas. If you really do have groups of people who have vastly different technical expertise or very different goals in using the product, I do recommend testing separately with each of the groups.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:58
But make sure that the groups are really different. For example, if you have a marketplace, you?ll need to do very different types of testing with buyers vs sellers.

saviano
2016-04-20 22:58
20 to 80? Who are you aiming your changes to? and what are you intending the changes to impact?

samatjain
2016-04-20 22:59
@hawk: I missed that the chat was happening in this channel, but thanks!

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:59
@saviano: also an excellent point.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 22:59
usability testing will require different types and groups of users than generative user research.

dust
2016-04-20 22:59
It’s an online grocery store so basically used by all types, it’s been a long struggle to determine good groups

sandyho7
2016-04-20 23:00
they are far apart in age, im interested to know why such a diverse age group of people are using your product- what are they looking for? will that point be more relevant to understanding your user grop better

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:00
@dust: when you recruit, are you seeing strong patterns?

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:01

sandyho7
2016-04-20 23:01
groceries usually end up being about buying patterns as well

dust
2016-04-20 23:01
That’s a good question,, I don’t handle the recruiting but it gives me somewhere to dig. Thanks

oddencreative
2016-04-20 23:01
@dust: Instead of going to groups and demographics, create user personas, and then interview those who use the grocery store and ask them what you are looking to serve? Then look for patterns towards that…

saviano
2016-04-20 23:01
So you’ve also got the contents of your grocery store to differentiate. That’s a double challenge.

sandyho7
2016-04-20 23:01
haha merchandising/stock management will be secondary i think

sandyho7
2016-04-20 23:02
unless you honestly have a terrible range

sandyho7
2016-04-20 23:02
like no milk or something

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:02
At a higher level, you need to understand why the changes you predicted would make a difference in user behavior didn’t make a difference.

paddyg
2016-04-20 23:02
Agreed @lauraklein – perhaps the fall down was in implementation…?

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:02
Any time you predict ?If I do x, users will do more/less of y? and it isn’t true, you need to post mortem it. Why did you think that? What went wrong?

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:03
@paddyg: could be implementation. could be bad problem identification. could be bad solution identification. could be a bug.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:04
I think looking at what process got us to bad decisions is critical to making better decisions.

chadc
2016-04-20 23:04
@lauraklein do growth hackers define success as purely an increase in customer/visitor numbers or is there some other metric(s)?

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:04
@chadc GOOD growth hackers define success as a growing active (or paying) user base.

dust
2016-04-20 23:04
Ok thanks Laura, some good stuff to think about. I’ll check out the blog

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:05
it?s not just about acquisition. It’s about engaging users and reducing churn as well. that?s how we get to growth.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:05
Again, growth hacking is just a mindset that helps us get to growth.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:05
growth is the important thing

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:06
oh, and a lot of growth hacking techniques and tactics you see people talk about won’t work any longer, because they?re based on exploiting a particular channel – ie. Facebook hacks.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:07
So, it?s important to think of it as the overall methodology rather than specific tactics. It’s about experimentation and forming good hypotheses about how to improve the active user base of the product.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:07
It’s very Lean Startup in that way.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:07
Eric has a whole chapter on Engines of Growth in The Lean Startup that I swear nobody actually read because it?s in the second half of the book. It’s interesting though.

chadc
2016-04-20 23:08
@lauraklein: saw an article talking about “pirate metrics” – Is this similar to what you use?
Acquisition: attract customers.
Activation: make sure customers believe in the product. Make sure they get that wow-effect.
Retention: make sure your customers come back.
Revenue: your customers are activated and coming back. Next step: make sure you get revenue.
Referral: are your customers happy? Next step for growth: make sure they refer your product to their friends.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:08
@chadc I have something related, but slightly different.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:08
I call mine the User Lifecycle Funnel, and it?s a little bit more generic than that.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:08
It?ll be in the new book

lukcha
2016-04-20 23:08
Pirate metrics! A.A.R.R.R.!

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:09
and probably on the blog soon.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:09
by ?soon? I may mean ?this summer”

sandyho7
2016-04-20 23:09
look forward to the new book & angry/drunk blog post

lukcha
2016-04-20 23:11
Well, this has been excellent. we’re 10 minutes overtime, but it is great to see some fantastic questions.

lukcha
2016-04-20 23:11
Thanks so much for your time today Laura ? we really appreciate it. It’s been a pleasure learning from you. :simple_smile:

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:11
Thanks! Glad to be here.

lukcha
2016-04-20 23:11
Thanks also to everyone that joined in. Keep your eyes out for the transcript early next week up on http://uxmastery.com

paddyg
2016-04-20 23:11
:clap: Thanks

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:11
thanks for the questions, everybody!

sandyho7
2016-04-20 23:12
:+1:

kristenh
2016-04-20 23:12
Thank you. That was great. :simple_smile:

chadc
2016-04-20 23:12
Sorry one last q if there’s time. As a growth hacker, would you say you use the UX research or generate your own.

kai
2016-04-20 23:12
has joined #ask_laura_klein

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:12
@chadc: I’m not specifically a growth hacker. I’m a UX designer. So I always do my own research. Different teams treat it differently though.

chadc
2016-04-20 23:12
Ok, thank you.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:13
anybody using research should be involved in research

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:13
that doesn’t mean they have to be the one actually planning/running it, necessarily

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:13
although, the more involved they are, the better.

lauraklein
2016-04-20 23:13
ok, I’m off. Thanks again!

chadc
2016-04-20 23:13
I hadn’t heard the term before todya, so I thought it might have been a separate endeavor from UX.

chadc
2016-04-20 23:14
Thank you.

oddencreative
2016-04-20 23:14
thank you!

lukcha
2016-04-20 23:12
If you still have questions or want to continue the discussion, head over to the forum thread: http://community.uxmastery.com/t/3pm-wed-20th-pdt-ask-the-uxperts-what-ux-practitioners-need-to-know-about-growth-with-laura-klein/709
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Luke Chambers
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