Start with the customer experience, not with tech!
Steve Jobs is the father of the mindset I created in my mind. As a child who tried to discover digital from a young age and was involved in the digital world from childhood, I have worked in different disciplines such as marketing, sales and product management since I stepped into adulthood, and most recently I discovered that my field is product management and, in a deeper breakdown, “product experience”. .
As a product enthusiast who has been trying to grow his own product experience studio for two years, I just came across a video of Steve Jobs that I have never seen before and I was blown away, I thought I should immediately publish it on product.blog under the title of ideas.
In our technological development and knowledge in 2023, the huge brands that decided to develop digital products in the sector still started by hiring technical technology people, and they had digital products developed by technical people, not people with experience, and this, in their opinion, was “more profitable, faster and logical”. I witnessed what they thought.
I want to say clearly that this is a very shallow perspective, we still continue to encounter founders or senior managers of newly established million-dollar companies with this perspective, it is very surprising because Steve Jobs spoke with this perspective and a sarcastic question in this sense at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 1997. encountered.
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As you can watch in the video above, a viewer, who I assume is a developer, says to Jobs, “You are a bright, successful person and an effective person.” However, can you tell us about the technical proficiency and knowledge of the product you developed (he is talking about a Java-based product) and what you have personally done in this regard for the last 7 years? says.
Jobs said; I’m sure Java has many unused breakdowns and features that I don’t know about, but if you are pursuing a goal, if you are developing a product based on a goal, “you should start with the customer experience, you should follow the technology backwards.” ‘ says.
This means that today, we encounter highly praised mobile application products in sectors that may not be big yet but are growing rapidly, in which millions of dollars have been invested, but when you look at the experience as a whole, that is, when you look at the UX, CX and the product experience in general, you almost say it is a disgrace, with so many teams, How can such a big brand do such a thing? Isn’t the place where this brand serves and makes money its customers?
Yes, we are still amazed when we see it, but unfortunately, many brands make a big mistake, especially in new sectors and markets, and miss the experience, postpone it until later and focus on the technical part. So what does this lead to?
The product is missing the big break. If it had a good experience and then a technology that matched this experience and vision, if it had been designed from the beginning by experience and business experts, not technology experts, and if the technology was built accordingly, if the product had gone up 100 meters, it would have been able to jump 500 meters.
Global players and investors and professionals who know the “customer first” philosophy have a bad impression when they see such products, because the issue is based on vision.
For products whose technology is not developed with a focus on user experience, it is necessary to start the process over again and plan the product experience from scratch at a huge cost (both money and time) and integrate it with the technology. Sometimes even the teams become inadequate in such projects.
Even if it is a first mover product/brand, it can quickly fall behind in the competition, and if an experience-oriented competitor comes to the market, it can quickly sweep this product away.
So I want to say very clearly, yes technology is very important, but remember “we work for customers/users, our real customers are the end users, not the managers or founders of the company”
Plan your product by including technical teams along with experience experts and business experts, and do not miss the “customer first” vision when discussing the issues.
So what should you do if you missed it and don’t know what to do now? Then check out this article:
Implementing a new user experience and interface project in a mobile application with 200K+ users?
If you are curious about the details, there is a clear dialogue between Steve Jobs and the person asking;
Question: I would like, for example, for you to express in clear terms how, say java, in any of it’s incarnations, addresses the idea (inaudible). And when you’re finished with that, perhaps you could tell us what you personally have been doing for the last 7 years.
Steve: You know, you can please some of the people some of the time, but…. One of the hardest things when you’re trying to effect change is that people like this gentleman are right in some areas.
The hardest thing is: how does that fit in to a cohesive, larger vision, that’s going to allow you to sell 8 billion dollars, 10 billion dollars of product a year? And, one of the things I’ve always found is that you’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards for the technology. You can’t start with the technology and try to figure out where you’re going to try to sell it. And I made this mistake probably more than anybody else in this room. And I got the scar tissue to prove it. And I know that it’s the case.
And as we have tried to come up with a strategy and a vision for Apple, it started with “What incredible benefits can we give to the customer? Where can we take the customer?” Not starting with “Let’s sit down with the engineers and figure out what awesome technology we have and then how are we going to market that?” And I think that’s the right path to take.
Apple embodies this philosophy throughout the customer lifecycle, including being exposed to the product, buying the product, implementing the product, upgrading the product, and getting help with the product. It is Apple’s competitive advantage.
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Start with the customer experience, not with tech! was originally published in product.blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.