In a recent performance and career review, my boss recently challenged me to start thinking way ahead to where we currently are and what we currently do. I thought I was - wasn't I thinking about all those cool features that, if researched correctly, really could make a difference in how our users use our product?
“German thinking”
But he reasoned my skill gap with how I am fully embracing the German engineering mentality. While I didn’t graduate an engineer degree, he told me how meticulously I see something, identify inefficiencies in it and figure out how I can fine-tune it for increased gains. This really got me thinking because
I didn't expect it to so obvious and
I didn't quite think why that's a bad thing?! 🤨
This really got me thinking about whether I'm often too narrow-minded in this sense or - how the Germans like to say it - I am wearing my Scheuklappen too often. From then on we've been discussing what thinking way ahead means for Building Radar and our product but I've been struggling to find actionable examples for it. After all, the big products you know and love just seem to evolve in this exact way - making my life (or product usage) a bit better with every other release...
A real case 🤯
Today, however, this topic became real for me. I was searching for nice places to stay for an upcoming trip to Sweden 🇸🇪 and already had some place booked for one leg of the trip via Booking. I opened the Airbnb app (while lying around in the sun, btw - their app is still one of my favorite mobile experience) for another quick look, clearly knowing it is the second of my two preferred/ only products for travel booking.
In comes Brian Chesky's announcement for their Airbnb 2022 Summer Release (check out the video here) and Airbnb Categories. I already liked how they reacted to the pandemic hitting the hospitality sector in 2020, jumping onto the increase in remote working with flexible travel dates (still somewhat unseen at the time - why?) and highlighting month-long booking options. I remember thinking “well, I really wish for you guys that this’ll keep you guys floating However long the pandemic will take”. But his introductory quote really challenged me and my young, naive product mind:
"For 25 years, the way you search for travel online has been the same. There's a big box, a search box. And it asks you a question: 'Where are you going?'" (minute 0:56)
But I have no idea where I want to go. It’s Sweden. It’s huge. And from what I understand, north of Stockholm the country is just endless beauty of lakes and forests. I love lakes and forests but do not care about the name of the village I will stay at. I also like the mediterranean but know that holidays in either Greece, Italy, France, Spain or Portugal are probably amazing (and that’s actually our second holiday planning dilemma)! What I do care about are the type of experiences I can have there.
It actually isn’t all about UX?!
For the last years (I haven't been searching for travel online that long) I thought it is all about these UX efficiencies in modern products. You know, those little bugs in a non-crucial part of the app that make you role your eyes. These moments where you ask yourself why the image does not close when I pull down. Or - as in the case of anything that offers a search - those results showing up just half a second too late 😩.
I don’t know for sure, but I’d expect product and development teams in large tech companies to probably spend millions of dollars marginally enhancing those UX experiences. Those, that users only realize subconsciously. I appreciate those efficiencies and liked to think this is the (German?) art of product management.
After all, at a scale of apps from Google (all of them just work), Meta (WhatsApp and Instagram are dominating young adults’ lives) or Airbnb (we’re talking 300 mio bookings in 2021), this probably has an indescribable effect on their retention.
It’s about finding out what your user really wants
The thing that got so much more tangible for me today:
Understanding what customers actually want from your product is worth so much more than these marginal UX efficiencies.
Or as Brian Chesky puts it: if I don't know what I should type in there, I do not care how fast the results show up. Period. I cannot wait to test out their Categories feature for my summer holiday 🌄.
This is my first publication on substack. I aim to write more about my experiences as a junior product manager and give the practice more visibility, especially as (real?) Product Management still does not seem to be very prominent in Germany. If you sign up to this newsletter, I don’t yet know how often my face will pop up in your inbox :-).
If this was interesting for you, let me know. I am on LinkedIn, Twitter and also have a mail account.
I really enjoyed reading the article, Lukas! But also do I agree with Paul's comment regarding the word "UX". It's something bigger than (small) usability enhancements.
Besides that I think AirBnb delivered a great feature which changed the way users search for holidays in comparison to the past and all the competitors in the market. In this sense they were really thinking "way ahead" the industry. But the question I ask myself is: Since when does the user need of rather looking for certain experiences than certain locations already exist? And might AirBnb have discovered this need earlier if they would have done their user research better/earlier?
Generally, your insights reminded me of the Jobs To Be Done framework which aims to focus on a user's core needs without bias or assumptions - thinking 'way beyond' an interface, product or solution 👍
www.productplan.com/glossary/jobs-to-be-done-framework/