User Adoption Experience (UAX)
Usability, Freedom & Ubiquity
Mention User Experience (UX) and more than likely thoughts go to interaction design, narrative value, accessibility, vocabulary and information architecture. These are aspects I generally think of as contributing to the overall usability of a product, and they form one of the essential keys needed for successful user adoption of a new product.
But Usability is just one aspect of user experience that affects product adoption. When making investment decisions during product planning you need to be appraised of two other aspects of experience that affect product adoption: Freedom and Ubiquity.
By Freedom I mean the freedom to adopt due to the absence of rules and conditions under which the product can be used. For example the need to register, to authenticate, to purchase at a cost, to use a real name, to have a prior email address, to learn a new process, learn a new language, to own a computer, etc., these are all potential barriers to entry impacting the freedom to uptake a product.
By Ubiquity I mean the wider use, popularity and adoption within a community or a marketplace, conformance to product standards, file formats, communication protocols, language and vocabulary, software platforms, devices, etc. With ubiquity comes a higher preference of choice, less scepticism, less opposition and increased consumer pressure to buy into a product.
Good product planning requires product and marketplace knowledge on all three of these aspects in order to balance investment and maximise the user adoption experience (UAX) for a product.
The following example graphs the image of an unbalanced user adoption experience. It shows a high level of usability, some constraints impacting freedom, but very low ubiquity.
Where this helps in product planning is I know that there is no point in further investment in the usability of the product while the ubiquity of the product is so low. Also improving freedom is likely to be a poor investment until the overall picture is more balanced.
User stories can be categorised with UAX points (Usability: 2, Freedom: 0, Ubiquity: 5) helping to drive sprint prioritisation. But improving Ubiquity often also requires investment in marketing, it’s not simply all about more development.
Used from the beginning of a product lifecycle this UAX balancing act will achieve the best adoption results for the investment made.
If you would like more information on digital product adoption and innovation please contact me: ben@cautionyourblast.com
Ben Stewart
