Disqus - Latest Comments for cindyalvarez

Re: The Improved New User Experience That Wasn’t

cindyalvarez — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 12:43:35 -0000

This is exactly WHY people should do A/B testing - to ensure that improving one metric doesn't come at the cost of other important metrics.

You are asserting that "with a simple signup process comes more interest"; but you are basing that on a sample size of one: yourself. When we look at big samples of data, we see that things we "know" to be true ... often aren't.

I completely agree that a service needs to be engaging in order to encourage people to stick around. And that's a separate problem that we need to tackle. But "why people do X" (or don't do X) is not a problem for a new split test -- you can't split test your way to hypotheses. That will require more qualitative research to get to a good hypothesis FIRST, then we build it out and validate it.

Re: The Improved New User Experience That Wasn’t

cindyalvarez — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:31:21 -0000

Pretty much all of the elements of the redesign came from direct customer feedback as well as watching people use our prior signup flow, which is why this was particularly amazing.

The thing is, people are very bad at weighing how significant factors are in making their decisions. A site can have hideous design, but be so useful that you end up using it anyways. Or a well-designed app can have some subtle element that undermines your trust and so you abandon it even though on paper it met all your needs.

The elements of the old signup flow that people found frustrating are still frustrating. But, as it turns out, those elements weren't frustrating *enough* to prevent usage, and in fact, possibly even made people feel more invested in our app. (someone tweeted me this link today in response - http://www.nirandfar.com/20...

Re: Are You Asking People to Ignore You?

cindyalvarez — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 01:41:07 -0000

It's a tough balance. Too much pausing/probing to make sure your listener 'gets it' is perceived as weak. But I've also worked with folks who keep blasting their point, oblivious to the fact that their audience is confused (or bored).

I think of it this way: meetings are usually boring. People tune out. An upward-intonation can prompt them back into the conversation, but it's also too easy for them to simply nod.

I try to mix in questions that are not yes/no questions ("How would you see that working?" or "What hesitations would you have if we did this?", which force people to engage more or allow them to admit that they tuned out so I can catch them back up.

Re: The Biggest Risk in Hiring Product People

cindyalvarez — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 11:55:07 -0000

Lots of candidates look great on paper and pass an initial phone screen with flying colors. Or the reverse: their resume is thin, but they showed a certain energy in their cover letter or phone screen.

So you bring them in to dig deeper and make sure.

Some you hire, some you don't -- but I noticed some patterns of communication in people I've chosen to "not hire" (as well as in interviews that *I myself* flubbed).

If someone reads this, and thinks, "oh wow, I gave an answer like that, and it probably didn't come across well" and adjust their interviewing style to land a job -- awesome!

Re: Sales ends February with a gong (er bang!)

cindyalvarez — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:41:15 -0000

So glad to hear things are going well for the team!

Re: Customer Development Interviews How-to: Finding People

cindyalvarez — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 14:17:01 -0000

Since originally posting this, I would add Quora as a good source for identifying people who have self-identified as being interested in a specific topic.

Re: Creating the Next Generation of US Employees. My Investment in Treehouse

cindyalvarez — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 17:20:12 -0000

I was a psychology major, and that background has been tremendously useful in my work in software product management and interaction design.

But the REASON I've been able to infuse that perspective and compassion into the parts of the tech world that I touch, is that I had the opportunity to get a pragmatic education in building websites, maintaining systems, and writing bad code. I was lucky -- I was in college at the right place/right time -- so it was easy to pick this stuff up.

But for most people, I think we need a concerted effort in making education answer the question "and what are you going to DO with it?" Be a poet, be a psych major, by all means, but find a way to share that thinking BEYOND other poets and psych majors. Otherwise America and humanity remain poorer.

Re: Netflix Redux: Is It Ever OK to Fire Your Customers?

cindyalvarez — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:55:01 -0000

Or customer research?
I won't even remotely claim that I'm as smart as Reed Hastings, but I'd bet an awful lot of $$ that I could've spent a week doing 30-50 customer interviews and a) identified the specific customer complaints and b) had strong evidence that the customer attrition would exceed whatever "acceptable thresholds" they were assuming.

Re: Big Dropoff? 5 Questions to Ask.

cindyalvarez — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:58:27 -0000

One of my former bosses used to threaten to FIRE anyone that he caught using our app in Firefox. :)

(We all preferred it, but our customers all used IE, and at that point the cross-browser differences were huge.)

He'd say, I don't care what you use for your personal browsing, but when you're using our app, you'd better [redacted] well be using IE or you will never find bugs before our customers do.

Re: Why Aren’t There More Female Entrepreneurs?

cindyalvarez — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 01:50:01 -0000

When I was 6, my mom forced me to play soccer (I would've preferred to stay inside and read) and I kicked at the grass and hoped the ball didn't come to me.

When I was 22, I decided on my own to take up soccer again, and I am a BRUTE who will run right through you if you have the ball. (In the past 12 years, I've broken 2 bones and returned to the field less than 3 months after having my kid.)

So what do you take from that?

a) it's kind of dumb to make generalizations about a gender based on what they're like before they've reached the age of reason;

and b) sadly, these early differences -- which lessen over time -- are what set the stage for discouraging women from technology (and men from "traditionally-female" occupations.)

Re: Why Aren’t There More Female Entrepreneurs?

cindyalvarez — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 20:11:45 -0000

(I'll note: it took me until I was well into my 20s to learn this stuff.)

Re: Why Aren’t There More Female Entrepreneurs?

cindyalvarez — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 20:11:23 -0000

It's not just about having mentorship programs, it's even more basic: women need to learn HOW to interact with a mentor.

That their mentors expect them to initiate contact, and are probably really excited to help someone who has the passion to ask for help.

That you may need to email a busy person more than once to get them to respond (trust me, we're not thinking you're annoying for emailing twice in 2 weeks, we're grateful that we don't have to dredge our inbox to find your 1st email.)That mentors are much more likely to respond if you say "here's my specific problem and how I think I should tackle it, do you have any suggestions" vs. "what should I do?"That when mentors shoot your idea down, that's an implicit challenge (and OPPORTUNITY) to explain why they're wrong, not a reason to give up.How can we teach this? Can we have secret agent mentor training camp for young women? I would be 100% in to help teach THAT.

Re: What does a validated hypothesis look like?

cindyalvarez — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:46:05 -0000

One exception I should note, though, is that "aspirational customers" are not always bad -- if you're selling a one-time solution, with little word-of-mouth, they're your best customer base! (i.e. Thighmaster, buy my investment CD and learn how to make millions, diet pills, timeshare condos)

Re: Why Email May Be Draining Your Company’s Productivity

cindyalvarez — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 10:33:48 -0000

I like "no commitments allowed via email". I just wish I could also enforce "no commitments allowed via 'I'm driving and thought I'd call you with this new idea I just had...' " as well.

Re: Why Reed Hastings Should be Applauded for Netflix Split

cindyalvarez — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 15:31:17 -0000

But consumer backlash is short-lived. It's painful for a matter of weeks or months (I guarantee you some product managers out there feel kicked in the gut each time they read an angry customer email or comment), but people have a short memory.

Every time I've done a product or website redesign in my career, the immediate response is a ton of complaints... and then 6 months later when you change again, the SAME PEOPLE who complained last time say "but it was perfect, why did you change it?" Meanwhile usage goes up, revenues go up.

Complaining is cheap. Changing behavior permanently is (mentally) expensive.

Re: 10 Things I’ve Learned

cindyalvarez — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 12:55:24 -0000

Good point. The correct followup to "but I bet other people would..." is probably "Can you think of any specific people you know who do/would use this?"

There's a big difference between "well, yeah, my sister uses Linux" and "ummm... maybe someone who's really into X would use product Y?"

Re: 10 Things I’ve Learned

cindyalvarez — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 13:58:32 -0000

There is a huge difference between someone who is using your product without paying you money and someone who would ONLY use your product (or any other product) if it was free.

There's an implicit social contract with you and your early beta customers - they're using it because they want to use it. You both know it's not done yet, probably has no help content, and plenty of bugs. So in return, the least you can do is waive the cash price (which is usually a lot "cheaper" than their time!)

This is very different from someone who will sign up for anything 'as long as it's free', or who regularly goes to a lot of effort (workarounds, gaming the system, signing up with multiple accounts, etc.) solely to avoid pulling out their credit card. These people waste their own time in order to save money, and they're only too happy to waste yours too.

How do you tell the difference? Usually the beta customers don't ask -- they pretty much assume it'll be free, at least temporarily. But the freeloaders: that's the first question they ask, before even "what do you do?" or "how do I use it?"

Re: The Do’s and Don’ts of Cold-Emailing

cindyalvarez — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 14:32:36 -0000

I haven't experimented as much with the subject line. Honestly, there are a lot of tactics that I suspect work really well (like using the person's first name, or just using "hey") -- but that feel spammy to me and so I won't use them.

If I'm emailing someone that I found on Twitter/Quora, I usually use that as the subject line. "Saw your Quora answer and had a question" -- the more LEGITIMATELY personal you can make it, the better.

Re: User Feedback, The Google+ Way

cindyalvarez — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:35:12 -0000

Three that you may want to check out are Usabilla, SnapABug, and KISSinsights. (Disclosure: KISSinsights is my product). All 3 go beyond the general "Got feedback?" -- a vague question that gets vague answers, and not very many of them.

My experience has been that customers don't mind expending effort on giving feedback -- when that effort is DIRECTLY TIED to speaking their mind. i.e. "don't waste my time making me log in or click through tabs, but I'm happy to paste in a URL or annotate a screenshot" - especially if they feel like their effort will directly result in a response or (hopefully) an improvement.

Re: Won the Battle But Lost the War

cindyalvarez — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:30:14 -0000

I agree, it's not a perfect analogy because books purchased as gifts -- which is mostly what I'm talking about in our specific household/bookshelf -- tend to be one-off purchases and thus there are limited repercussions when a book lies unread.

However, when you get beyond the "board book" stage, the young readers books are HEAVILY series-dependent. So a single book purchase when you have a series of 20+ is a pretty weak victory.

But your point definitely would apply for novelty items, impulse purchases, or immediate-need items (for example, every year thousands of SF tourists buy cheap fleece jackets because they weren't anticipating the chill over the Golden Gate bridge -- who cares if those jackets fall apart two weeks later?). There ARE plenty of cases where you only have a single point of contact with a customer, and in those instances your focus needs to be on SELL not BUILD TRUST because the latter has no benefits to you.

Re: Your Surveys Suck. You Need to Actually Talk to Customers.

cindyalvarez — Thu, 26 May 2011 22:12:07 -0000

Of course surveys don't always fail. Heck, I use them all the time. But they are an easy crutch for companies to lean on.

And if customers' defenses are up in a face-to-face conversation, you're doing it wrong. :) Customers like to complain or suggest/sound smart, as long as you give them permission to. Of course, I've seen companies who say "What do you mean, you don't like X?!" -- maybe those people should stick with surveys.

Re: Customer Development Interviews How-to: What You Should Be Learning

cindyalvarez — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 11:02:29 -0000

Nope, I wouldn't use these in an online survey. It takes a lot more effort to write, and people are more self-conscious about seeing their thoughts in writing, so they tend to self-censor. You also totally miss the emotional component; you can't tell whether they were scowling or grinning when they wrote an answer.

That said, you definitely don't have to do these interviews face-to-face -- I do the majority of my customer dev over the phone. It does take a little practice to adjust to the rhythms of listening and replying, but you can get most of the same value out of phone.

Re: 5 Reasons Why You Have No Credibility with Engineering

cindyalvarez — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 01:16:46 -0000

And if you're working with more junior engineers, they may believe that "well, if this is what she's asking for, she probably has a good reason, I'll just shut up and implement it" --

and then they fail to bring up very *good* pushback like "it's possible but it would take half the time if I used this technology" or "this will work fine as long as we never plan on exceeding X users..."

Re: 5 Reasons Why You Have No Credibility with Engineering

cindyalvarez — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 01:13:12 -0000

of course!

Re: Can you tell me, right now, who your customers are?

cindyalvarez — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 12:20:10 -0000

They were probably designed to do just that - but the vast majority of PMs I talk to cannot, in fact, get a list of customers on their own. Whether that's due to dumb corporate policy or restrictive CRM licenses or a terrible UX, I have no idea.

Developing a plug-in may be the right solution - or it may take longer because now your developer (who probably doesn't have access to your CRM) now has to learn about some third-party app and their API.