Product Design Tricks-Getting the whole story..

One of the traps we get sucked into as product folks is looking at the focused slice of a problem that we are working on, and not looking at the whole job that our beloved customers want to get done.  In looking at the bigger picture, making the small decisions becomes a lot easier.

Here is a very specific example of and idea that I don’t really mind if anyone steals.   The notion was called “A hard letter to write” and it focused on that moment in time when someone gets bad news from the doctor and needs to let their friends and family know what is going on.  The core problem in that moment is that most people are in shock and don’t real have it together to write what the need to, so the idea was to create what was essentially a prompting wizard that would help people get most of the things that their friends would want to know in one place so they wouldn’t have to go through the story over and over again unless they felt like it.

So the first step was figuring out what people would want to know:

1. What was the diagnosis?
2. What is the prognosis?
3. How did they find out?
4. How do feel about this?
5. What are the next steps?
6. What can we do to help? (Talk, don’t talk, support, etc.)

This is all pretty straight forward, but when we dig a little deeper, more of the real needs start to make themselves known.  What someone is doing when they write this kind of letter is cutting off conversations they don’t want to repeat, setting the tone that they want people to react to them with, but most important, they are setting out the call for support.  They often want their coworkers to cut them a break on the days they have chemo, their bosses to understand if their work and focus slips, and the help to come from their friends and family without having to ask or beg for it and feel even worse then they currently do.  They don’t know how they will be feeling, and need the world to catch them a little as they get buffeted around.  Side by side with this, the people in their lives want to understand what is going on and know as much as possible the best way to do something in the face of something that seems out of control.  They want to say the right things, they want to offer support without adding more burden, and often they want to spit at the disease that is hurting their friend by donating or volunteering or just feel like they are doing something.

When we, as product people start thinking about the problem in this way, we realize that the service that helps to write the letter is just the tip of a complete solution.  What is really needed here are a set of follow-on items. 

• A proxy service that lets the sick person designate someone to be their scribe and buffer to the rest of the world.
• A method or place for people to find out what is happening on an ongoing basis.
• A way to organize help…
• Prompting the patient to know what kinds of help people can bring (meals, sitting while going to appointments, phone trees for emergency support, friend date nights, people to chat with at 3 in the morning, rides to the doctor)
• Logistical support for organizing the help (a calendar to see what days a meal is needed, when sitting etc.)

In looking at that, we not only really solve the core needs of the people we are building for, but the monetization becomes much clearer.  We can’t really advertise to the sick person, they are in no mood, and frankly it would be wrong.  But the support groups, are in the moment of looking to help, and ads for the National Cancer Society, Waiters on wheels, florists, etc…things that would actually help to give those folks a focus for their desire to help, provides a very real revenue stream.