The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback

Chapter 13 Measure Your Key Metrics

The customer research techniques available to you when you are building a new, v1 product differ before and after launch. Because you don't yet have a customer base before launch, you rely heavily on qualitative research with prospective customers for direct feedback on your product. While you can of course still conduct customer interviews to solicit feedback on your product after launch, your learning opportunities grow when you have a live product and a customer base using it. You can now take advantage of additional quantitative learning methods: namely, analytics and A/B testing. This chapter will explain how to use analytics to model and measure your product and your business. The next chapter builds on the lessons in this chapter by providing a structured process for using analytics to make improvements, and also includes a case study.

ANALYTICS VERSUS OTHER LEARNING METHODS

Before diving into analytics, I want to share a useful framework created by my colleague Christian Rohrer, a successful UX design and research executive. It categorizes the various ways you can learn from customers. Figure 13.1 shows a simplified version of Rohrer's framework. The vertical axis depicts the type of information you are collecting: attitudinal or behavioral. Attitudinal information is what customers say about their attitudes and opinions. Let's say you show a customer a mockup of a landing page. He tells you he likes the green color scheme, and that he ...