Uncovering Customer Desires: Understanding Benefits in Concept Development

The topic I wanna talk about today just so happens to be benefits to you . The topic I want to talk about today just so happens to be benefits versus features . This is a foundational concept that we know . You know , if we're in product design , developing things , we know the difference between benefits and features .

But when we're in the thick of things , in the details , we can sometimes forget . So sometimes it's worth it to revisit some of the foundational aspects of product design . So let's talk about benefits versus features after this brief introduction . Hello and welcome to Quality During Design , the place to use quality thinking to create products others love for less .

I'm your host , Diana Deeney . I'm a senior level quality professional and engineer with over 20 years of experience in manufacturing and design . I consult with businesses and coach individuals and how to apply quality during design to their processes . Listen in and then join us . Visit qualityduringdesigncom . Listen in and then join us Visit qualityduringdesigncom .

So , yes , this announcement there's a new website

resource for you to access for all things quality during design and all of my other services and offerings . I was debating publishing like a brief , quick podcast . That just made the announcement , because I'm really excited about it .

It took many months of research , setting up and actual work time to be able to make this change happen , but I'm really proud of it and I think you're really going to like it .

When I was coming up with this episode , I went back to some basics because I was thinking I don't want to just list out a bunch of features that I've been designing and working on for this website for months . I want to focus on the benefits , because that's the true reason why I wanted to present this to you .

This isn't just a new website design that's pretty . I really intended it to be a functional design that provided my listeners , my users and my website visitors value benefits which are different from features . So when I'm prepping for this episode , I'm reminded of that . You don't want features , you want benefits .

That's a cornerstone of product development and it just so happens when I'm looking at the schedule of my podcast topics , the topic is exploring benefits versus features . Sometimes the universe just aligns perfectly and things happen the way they're supposed to , which is what's happening with this podcast episode .

I want to talk with you about benefits versus features and maybe compare them against some user needs , because they're all different . They each have a different importance in product design .

They each have a different purpose and a different focus , but they all intertwine together to be able to give us information about our customers and targets for what we need to design against , In this case , along with this announcement for my website . You are my customers .

I had you in mind when I was thinking about benefits versus features , so let's talk about these two different concepts , why they're different and how we treat them differently in design . What are benefits ? Benefits describe the user's experience , so their positive outcomes of using our product and the impact that it has on the user .

Benefits can be beliefs or reasons . They're the effect of whatever feature our users are using in our product . It could be described as a narrative or an emotional connection . The focus of a benefit is on the user because it improves their situation . Benefits also tell us how a feature adds value .

As you're listening , I'm wondering if you caught on that I used an acronym to describe benefits . An example of a benefit statement could be our customers can use product capabilities or have these characteristics so they can experience this value . Benefits are a relationship of the feature that we're offering and the impact that it gives to our customers .

A need , on the other hand , is a gap in the problem space . Our team has already identified needs , which prompted the whole product development project in the first place . Needs are that gap between what the user can do now or has now compared to what they want to do or have . Needs identify and characterize the problem space .

One way of looking at needs is to consider the jobs to be done , which focuses on the outcome . It challenges us to question if the current way is really the best way of doing something . Another way of looking at needs is through user personas , which we can use to consider the reasons or motivations behind our users' behaviors .

Needs can be something our customers have identified . It also might be something that they really haven't even considered . A need statement can be worded like this Our customer needs to do this so they can achieve this . Comparing that again to our benefit statements our customers can use product capabilities or have characteristics so they can experience this value .

Needs and benefits are different . Must users have a benefit in order to fill a need ? No , but benefits are an experience that will give our customers satisfaction .

When we're in the early , fuzzy front end of product development , when we're thinking about concept development , we may have some needs that sound like benefits and if we do , we can examine them as benefits and develop design inputs .

That's not a problem , but these things will sort of work themselves out and through the process of concept development we'll get clarity on what is what what's a need versus what's a benefit . Features , on the other hand , when our design project is complete , specific features will be tangible and measurable . Features can be described as facts .

They are essential functions or components . They're attributes in which test data can describe it . They're unique and the reason that our product works . We can usually explain features with instructions . I don't know if you caught on this time , but I also used an acronym to describe features .

I'll put a graphic of these acronyms of benefit and feature on the podcast blog . So our product features are the product capabilities or characteristics that we design for our customers to use In our concept development . We're not exactly sure what those characteristics are going to be . We can discuss generic features in order to develop design inputs .

Discuss generic features in order to develop design inputs , but we can't detail them or engineer them on the spot during concept development . We're simply gathering potential design inputs . So , if we take this example of the new website , dinienterprisescom , let's look at the benefits versus the features

. The benefits that I wanted you to have is I wanted you to get clarity on your current roles in new product development . We all experience frustrations in product development , but if you can specifically name the challenges that you face , then you can take the next step and do something about it or understand some of the things that you can do about it .

So that's one benefit that I wanted to give you . With the new website design and its links and functionality is clarity understanding your current situation and then gaining steps on what to do about it .

Next , the impact that this clarity will have on you is to make your work easier and make your job better , and so that you can get better results , you'll be a happier person having done this . Now , what are the features of the website that allow me to give this to you ? One feature is that the website's more organized . It's better indexed by topic .

Are you taking a more technical approach to product development , Then there's these resources for you . Do you focus more on teamwork ? Then there's these other resources for you . And , finally , leadership also has its own track for understanding its specific challenges and then potential solutions for that . So that is one feature to give you that benefit of clarity .

The other feature that I added to the website was a quiz , an archetype quiz . What's your product development archetype and what to do next ?

So taking a short five question quiz will get you to whether you are more technical , if your challenges are with teamwork or with leadership , and that can lead you into an email sequence that can help you with developing solutions .

Even if you've been in product development for a while and have seen many challenges , I think the quiz is a good way to understand where you are at the moment and identify some of the things that you can do or focus on in order to improve that situation .

All right , another benefit that I focused on was making sure that the resources that I have are easier to get . A lot of the things that I've developed over the years I put on the website and they're just free to access and they're under resources .

There's a video series where I explored quality topics but toward their application in design , and it includes my most popular video about usability FMEAs UFMEAs there's a series about test results analysis .

Some of the topics in that series is how to handle competing failure modes or , when it's not normal , what kind of distribution you should choose and statistical versus practical significance . These are all topics I've helped people with in the past and seem to come up regularly .

There's a short training module about mistake-proofing , the user process , which involves PokeUK for product design , and my white paper is easily accessible . Reasons to use quality and reliability early and iteratively in new product development and ways to do it . So those are all features of the website dinienterprisescom .

They're all free , easily organized so that you can get to them easily , and the benefit is that you have resources at your fingertips to help you improve your product development processes . The third benefit of this new website

is just to give users an understanding . If they're in the right place . Are these the kind of challenges that you face and are these some of the solutions that you think will work for you ? Or , if you work with people and they're experiencing some of these challenges or you hear them often , is this something that you could share with somebody else .

So if one of the benefits is just understanding , if you're in the right place , then some of the features that I offer are the updated podcast and blog section . Quality During Design podcast is now combined with the Dini Enterprises blog and I plan to be writing more articles .

Also , there's an easy search function and podcasts and blogs are more easily organized for whatever focus that you're looking at and again , those focuses are if you're technical , if you're focused on teamwork or leadership , you'll be able to find the information and resources that are specific to your challenges . So what's today's insight to action ?

I want to encourage you to start thinking about design from the perspective of a targeted customer benefit . We usually focus in on being able to provide a particular feature and making that happen , making sure the engineering happens to make that feature available . But is it linked to a customer benefit ?

Not necessarily a need , but a benefit , Something that's going to impact our users and customers in a positive way and provide value to them , providing them more reasons for purchasing and using our product besides just filling a need or solving their problem .

And I'd like you to tell me how I did with DiniEnterprisescom . Did I target the right benefits and did my features deliver . You can be part of my test validation for my website . Please visit the site , take the quiz . Let me know what you think . This has been a production of Dini Enterprises . Thanks for listening .