So once you have a good understanding of the problem,
you move to the define stage.
Could you tell us a little bit about that?
>> Yeah, I love the define stage.
So we started not by rushing to solutions, but by understanding.
Second, we move to something that would be absolutely amazing and
favorite for everyone who likes analysis.
The define stage is about finding a strategy and
analyzing what is the best path to actually arrive at the solution.
During this stage, all of the exercises that someone is familiar with
around product strategy become very, very applicable.
Let's list a few examples.
The define stage can be greatly enhanced if people pause to describe the user
journey that they're working to create for the user.
A user journey is a storyboard that helps define the major pieces,
step by step, of someone experiencing the product for the very first time
when they don't know anything about it, towards the time when they become
a masterful user and they're maybe even evangelizing it to their friends.
>> So I actually need to write what the user name is and
what do they do with the app?
>> Well, that's a great question.
You might not need to have a user name for the user journey.
What you're trying to find is what is the most common
path that someone will take.
>From a perspective of not knowing anything,
towards being able to use it over and over again.
Now within that, there may be other stories.
For example, if you're working on an app that's reviewing local restaurants,
there may be one journey for people who are writing the reviews, and
another journey for people who are reading the reviews.
>From those two, the most common path would be someone hearing about your app.
Hey, there's this great local app, this can be in a newspaper,
this can be in a restaurant, and you need to plan for that, because
if you don't plan for the discover moment, it's just not going to happen.
So you look at it as how are people discovering my app?
After that, it's about how are they starting to use it?
Well, that may mean that they download it, and then afterwards,
they're starting to search for restaurants, read about them, and
then they get reminded after they've been somewhere potentially,
that they need to write a review.
So let's say the most common path.
The user journey has many names in the industry.
Because design is a relatively new discipline in technology,
there have been many different ways to refer to that.
Some people refer to the user journey as a storyboard.
In fact, what we know from design history is that Disney
was the first person to use storyboards.
Disney had a team of artists and technologists who had
to make the first animated movies before anyone knew how to make that.
So in order to keep everybody on the same page, and
not to waste money, he created the storyboard that said,
moment after moment, what is happening to his characters.
And that first storyboard, which was about the movie Snow White, helped
organize his team, and set a precedent that teams continue to use today.
So if you're using a storyboard, you have Disney to thank for that.
>> And a quick follow-up on that, so how do I know that I have enough stories,
that I've completed all the stories.
>> So this is a great question.
The user journey is the idea that there's one central story that is
the most important.
Another name for that is the Golden Path.
That actually comes from Microsoft.
In Microsoft, or so the story goes, the teams refer to the golden path as
the experience that is absolutely key for the product to work,
for the users to come and get what they want.
The Golden Path is supported by red threads.
These are the little stories that help make it possible, and there can be many,
many little thread such as the user sign in, potentially the shopping experience.
But if the Golden Path is your discovery process then that's what needs to be
really easy, really key and all efforts in the company need to be focused there.
So why is it important to be clear of one most important user journey?
Well, we believe that it is important to prioritize, and
if you don't know what your app is going to be most commonly used for,
then it's really difficult to know how all the other things fall out.
So, we recommend to always focus on one central user journey, and
to make sure that it is easy and effortless for people to achieve that.
It's important to plan for everything.
We see a lot of startups fail because they have created a great product but
they don't have any plan for how they're going to be discovered.
In that way, they're building little islands in the ocean, and
there's no line there that will ever take passengers there.
This is why we remind people, plan the entire journey.
Plan your product in all of the different stages, from the time when no
one knows about it, towards the time when they're really masterful.