New products are released to the public every day. A few of these products will break through and become the huge names of tomorrow while the vast majority will fail to connect. Truly mediocre products rarely catch on, but it’s quite common for good products to go unnoticed.
There are many reasons why the public might overlook a good product. While chance always plays a role in product discovery, we’re going to focus on what happens when a person looks at your product for the first time.
People discovering your product or service for the first time will bounce from your homepage if a solution to their problem isn’t present. This means some people should definitely abandon your site after that first initial visit, but your target user should see something that resonates with them based on your research. You know what they are looking for, so show them that!
Aside from showing and saying the right things, the clarity and brevity of your choices do matter. According to the NN Group, users read about 20% of the text that you place on a page, but that percentage goes up as your total word count goes down. People are scanning, not reading, so it is important to break down product highlights. Think brief, scannable chunks of information instead of long passages — especially on a homepage.
Remember, good UX writing is the opposite of those 5,000-word book reports you wrote in high school. The quicker you can make your point and connect, the better.
Resources for review
Please use the following items to guide your exercise attempt:
Exercise
Length: Two-to-four hours to complete.
Without content, you can’t begin to communicate the message of your product or service. That’s why this exercise focuses on developing content using the methods described in the resources above.
You’ll be creating a Priority Guide to begin content development while also considering input from your stakeholders on the product details. You can access those suggestions here. While some of their recommendations may be useful, others won’t be. Your prior research will guide what you decide to use and what you discard.
Using the priority guides template from Figma, you should produce at least three iterations of content for the story map you created in the previous chapter. Remember to begin your work and gradually add detail to your work in subsequent iterations.
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Update your Program Journal with a link to your Priority Guides and any other items you produced in this exercise. Post your Journal in the #Feedback-Loop channel for review.
Up next Fresh Market: Sketching