The Product Canvas

The Product Canvas

www.ciandt.com

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a kanban for mobile product development

Inspired by Forrester’s

POST method

This is the way teams are usually organized

Product Creation /

Management

Design

Development

QA / Deploy

Sometimes – at some extent – you need to do this!

the web

the websites belong to the web and users go there at their convenience.

apps ecossystems

the apps belong to the users who will decide to use them, keep them or to delete them. Once deleted…

Why do we need a development mindset shift for mobile?

UX is important UX is fundamental!

You’d better do it right or you are out!

the most valuable real estate in your personal digital life

How to bring product mindset to developers using Agile?

How to bring product mindset to Agile developers?

kanban meets POST = the product canvas

peopleobjectives

strategytechnology

Who are they?Main user types (personas)(one post-it per user)

How will the app help them?

How are we

going to listen to

the users?

(existent and

new channels)

How will they find about the app?

What future features could make us need to move to another direction?

How does the

app help the

business?Main expected

economies if any

The most important indirect gains for the business?

This app should be:• <awesome>• <cool>• <easy to use>

What’s the distribution strategy?

Most

important

metrics we

MUST collect

from users

Is there a

monetization

strategy?

(profit versus

cost)

What does our next MVP (minimum viable product) deliver?“Cupcake first, cake along the way”

How do we make people come back to the app?

IMPORTANT DATES:

Why we believe

this is the best

option?

What motivates people to engage?

App’s Value

Proposition

What are the

most important

contexts the

app will be used

in? (one post-it

per context)

PROSCONS

peopleobjectives

strategytechnology

Who are they?(Main Personas, their Perspectives andExpectations)

How the app will help them?

How are we

going to listen to

the users?

(existent vs new

channels)

How will they find the app?

What future features could make us need to move to another direction?

How does the

app help the

business?Main expected

economies if any

The most important indirect gains for the business?

This app should be: (top 3)• <awesome>• <cool>• <easy to

use>

What’s the distribution strategy?

Most

important

metrics (top5)

we MUST

collect from

users

Is there a

monetization

strategy?

(profit versus

cost)

Do we have a MVP (minimum viable product)?

Cupcake first, cake along the way

How do we make people come back to the app? Top 3 features that will engage users

IMPORTANT DATES:

Why we believe

this is the best

option?

WHAT MAKES THEM ENGAGE?

APP’s VALUE

PROPOSITION What are the

most important

contexts the

app will be used

in?

PROSCONS

These are the post-its that talk about the people who will be using the app.

When you write the answers, you should put yourself on the shoes of the users.

Think about the most common contexts, needs, feelings and expectations

These are the post-its that talk about the business objectives our client wants to

achieve with their app.

They must take into account the users needs

These are the post-its that talk about the strategy we will put together to make this app

reach the audience and potentially achieve business objectives

These are the post-its that talk about the technology we chose and considerations

about it

We cannot make decisions on technology before answering the questions on the

previous 3 quadrants!

peopleobjectives

strategytechnology

Who are they?(Main Personas, their Perspectives andExpectations)

How the app will help them?

How are we

going to listen to

the users?

(existent vs new

channels)

How will they find the app?

What future features could make us need to move to another direction?

How does the

app help the

business?Main expected

economies if any

The most important indirect gains for the business?

This app should be: (top 3)• <awesome>• <cool>• <easy to

use>

What’s the distribution strategy?

Most

important

metrics (top5)

we MUST

collect from

users

Is there a

monetization

strategy?

(profit versus

cost)

Do we have a MVP (minimum viable product)?

Cupcake first, cake along the way

How do we make people come back to the app? Top 3 features that will engage users

IMPORTANT DATES:

Why we believe

this is the best

option?

WHAT MAKES THEM ENGAGE?

APP’s VALUE

PROPOSITION What are the

most important

contexts the

app will be used

in?

PROSCONS

Tip: Try to write on the post-its in a way that, when you read them, you

understand what’s there without the need to add the question.

Bear in mind that the section already gives you context!

people

Who are they?Main user types (personas)

(one post-it per user)

Age, gender, personality, whatever makes us understand who the target audience is.

Building a mobile app for a teenager is completely different than building an app for a mom.

You can use separate post-its for different people who will be using the app

people How will the app help them?

Why you as a user would use this app?

Does it simplify something, is it easier to use the mobile app than the web? Is it useful? Is it fun?

people

What are the

most important

contexts the

app will be used

in? (one post-it

per context)

Context gives us the opportunity to explore feelings and so, to leverage user experience.

Imagine that the app is to log a baby’s development, a context could be “when parents are strolling with their baby”

people

What motivates people to engage?

Why should I, as a user, keep the app in my phone and come back to it from time to time?

What draws me back to open that app over and over?

people

How will they find about the app?

Who will tell me about the app?

Am I going to find it in sites I usually go? On ads? By searching the app store?

people

How are we

going to listen to

the users?

(existent and

new channels)

The app should open a communication channel with its users

What could we do to make this happen inside and outside the app?

Are there any existent channels that could be leveraged?

objectives

App’s Value

Proposition

In a few words, what does this app intend to be or to do?

Examples:

“making running social”

“allow parents to follow and share the experience of raising a child”

objectives

How does the

app help the

business?

Direct benefits of this app to the business.

Generate revenues?

Learn about customers?

Sell products?

Promote the brand?

objectivesMain expected

economies if any

Is the app replacing a service that cost more to the business?

Is it going to be a cheaper way to advertise the brand?

Is it replacing manual work?

objectives

The most important indirect gains for the business?

The intangible gains, like “create a better relationship with customers”, “association of the brand to sustainable production”, etc.

objectives

IMPORTANT DATES:

All the most important until the roll-out of the product.

Is there any marketing campaign associated with it?

Important milestones for the business?

A good practice is also to put all those dates in all team member’s calendars.

objectives

This app should be:• <awesome>• <cool>• <easy to

use>

Ask the client to think about 3 attributes of the app that they would love to hear from the users most of the time.

It can be something like “reliable, sleek, easy to use”.

strategy

What’s the distribution strategy?

Every app biggest challenge is how to make itself visible inside an ocean – literally – of apps on the app stores. How can we make it possible to users to find the app (and the app to find its users?)

Some directions are: ad networks, publishers, blogs, webpages, Facebook fan pages, direct marketing, PR pushes, etc.

strategy

Most

important

metrics we

MUST collect

from users

We need to code the app so that important metrics are collected.

What would be the most important ones? E.g. “number of people who completes the app’s main flow”, “number of users that open the app more than once a day”, etc. Metric collection is a crucial part of evolving the app in the right direction.

The objective of the product canvas is not to mention all of them but to give emphasis to the most important ones

strategy

Is there a

monetization

strategy?

(profit versus

cost)

Does the client think about charging for the app? Did they settle on a price already? Is the app starting as paid and then becoming free at some point? Will it be free with ads? Free without ads? Are in-app purchases going to be available now or in the future?

strategy

How do we make people come back to the app?

What are the main features we believe will make people come back to the app very often?

strategy

What does our next MVP (minimum viable product) deliver?“Cupcake first, cake along the way”

Make no mistake: it’s better to build a small app that will evolve with real users’ feedback than trying to build a full-fledged one before users see it. Your minimum viable product is the app that validates your basic business assumptions or people’s interest in your app.

Think about the iPhone when it first launched: it didn’t have apps. Copy & Paste came along the way as well as the ability to keep your data if you received a call while running an app. The iPhone was hugely popular even without those features.

technology

Depending on the balance between budget, user experience goals, reach of the solution and agility to bring the app to the market, different technological solutions cam be picked. Use the diagram to clearly mark what was chosen.

In the example, we have a native app for iOS and Android devices. If there’s custom work to differentiate the app for tablets and phones, make an annotation mentioning that.

technology

Why we believe

this is the best

option?

In a few words, list the main drivers that made you decide upon a platform in detriment of other options.

If it’s too hard to explain, then maybe you haven’t picked the right option

technology

What future features could make us need to move to another direction?

Sometimes the current set of features and value proposition point to a certain technological solution. However, when you think about future potential paths of the app, it might need to include some features that are not available in the chosen platform.

One example could be a video app that in the future may need to include higher interactions with low level APIs of the phones to optimize video streaming. If this app started as a hybrid solution, this future vision of the app can potentially be very challenging.

technology

PROS

What are the pros of the chosen platform as opposed to the other options?

technology

CONS

What are the cons of the chosen platform as opposed to the other options?

Checklist to use The Product Canvas

• Interview the client without showing the canvas, get as much information as possible for each set of questions

• Summarize the answers into the post-its• Validate the canvas with client• Present it to the entire team• Print it and use it as a kanban, keep it visible to

everyone in the team throughout the project• Update it whenever necessary• Iterate!

peopleobjectives

strategytechnology

Who are they?Main user types (personas)

(one post-it per user)

How will the app help them?

How are we

going to listen to

the users?

(existent and

new channels)

How will they find about the app?

What future features could make us need to move to another direction?

How does the

app help the

business?Main expected

economies if any

The most important indirect gains for the business?

This app should be:• <awesome>• <cool>• <easy to

use>

What’s the distribution strategy?

Most

important

metrics we

MUST collect

from users

Is there a

monetization

strategy?

(profit versus

cost)

What does our next MVP (minimum viable product) deliver?“Cupcake first, cake along the way”

How do we make people come back to the app?

IMPORTANT DATES:

Why we believe

this is the best

option?

What motivates people to engage?

APP’s VALUE

PROPOSITION

What are the

most important

contexts the

app will be used

in? (one post-it

per context)

PROSCONS

Be creative: use extra elements, backgrounds, arrows, connections, icons, whatever makes this a great

communication tool!

Thanks!

www.ciandt.com

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if you are interested in seeing real cases of the product canvas, drop me a line cyrillo@ciandt.com

@cyrillo

@uxmindset