Winning the fringes
I came across two articles today that both deal with the same subject, the mass of people in the center of the distribution curve. This, of course, is where you find your "average" customer. Only that's the problem. There aren't any average people or average customers. If you're conceiving of an "average customer" for your business and designing your product for that average person, you're probably not doing as well as your competitor who has a better understanding of your real customers and their real goals.
The first article came from James Surowiecki. In his New Yorker column, he describes how companies catering to the luxury market (Apple, Hermes, etc) as well as companies catering to the discount/value market (Acer, H&M) have both done relatively well in the downturn. Meanwhile, pretty much anyone in between those poles has suffered.
For Apple, which has enjoyed enormous success in recent years, “build it and they will pay” is business as usual. But it’s not a universal business truth. On the contrary, companies like Ikea, H. & M., and the makers of the Flip video camera are flourishing not by selling products or services that are “far better” than anyone else’s but by selling things that aren’t bad and cost a lot less. These products are much better than the cheap stuff you used to buy at Woolworth, and they tend to be appealingly styled, but, unlike Apple, the companies aren’t trying to build the best mousetrap out there. Instead, they’re engaged in what Wired recently christened the “good-enough revolution.” For them, the key to success isn’t excellence. It’s well-priced adequacy.
Shortly after reading this article, I happened onto a post covering a similar topic from a different angle. This view was from the 37 Signals blog and recounted a familiar story facing application designers the world over. However, this view seemed to espouse a different take: the middle majority was where the design should be focused:
When we questioned one specific UI element (which dominated the design), we found ourselves defending it with an “Imagine if someone wanted to…” That’s when the red flag went up. “Imagine if…” is always a red flag. It doesn’t mean the imagination won’t prove to be right, it just means slow down, step back, and get back to what’s real for a moment. Any scenario can be imagined. Any use case can be dreamed up. But is this something a majority of the people will really need? Is there solid ground beneath this feature or is it floating in fantasy land?
So you've seemingly got both a case for and against designing for the middle.
In the former, there appears to be peril in designing middle of the road products. In the latter, there's appears to be peril in designing for anything other than the "majority" in the middle. Which is right? Well, it's not quite that simple.
I might argue that the issues each article is talking about has less to do with application development specifically or any new trend emerging from the Great Recession. The central issue is that if you don't know who your users/customers are, you can't make a good product and you won't be as successful as the companies that do understand their customers.
Apple is using solid industrial design and outstanding marketing to imbue computing products with a certain luxury cache. They are tapping into a well-defined market of people who not only want a computer that works, but a computer that makes a statement about their personality ... and who are willing to pay a premium to make that statement. This is a specific market. Acer is attacking the value-focused customer. The one who is willing to sacrifice cache for affordability and utility. Both companies get their market.
Though I don't have the evidence to support this statement, I might suggest that the companies in between these poles view their customers along the lines of - "Most people can't afford Apples and want something better than Acers". If you're defining your market in terms of your competitors left-overs, that's a problem.
Great Recession or not, you must design for a specific set of people with a specific set of goals. And that's where the 37 Signals post comes in. Although I think it was a little mis-stated, the author was getting at the point that you actually don't design for the majority of amorphous users, you design for the specific goals that your known users need to accomplish. Features that aren't on that freeway connecting users with their goals should be excised.
Applications and companies are similar in this respect. If you know your customers, you win. In any market.
