UX Strategy

Chapter 3. Validating the Value Proposition

“To know what a business is we must start with its purpose. Its purpose must lie outside of the business itself. In fact, it must lie in society since business enterprise is the organ of the society. There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.”^[24]

—PETER DRUCKER, 1973

AT THE BEGINNING, YOU DON’T JUST DEFINE YOUR PRODUCT VISION. Rather, you first need to figure out what problem you’re going to solve and what kind of customer needs it solved the most. That’s a lot to figure out, and getting one part wrong could turn your vision into a delusion. So, to stay grounded, you’re going to really dig into Tenet 1, Business Strategy, and Tenet 3, Validated User Research (see Figure 3-1 and refer to Chapter 2 if you need a refresher on the four tenets of UX strategy). In this chapter, you will learn how to create a value proposition, which is the magical thing that you must make tangible for customers. Then, you will go over how to validate it through experiments to prove whether that hypothesis is correct.

Figure 3-1. Tenet 1 and Tenet 3: Business Strategy and Validated User Research

The Blockbuster Value Proposition

When I was in the eighth grade, I used to pretend I had a stomachache so my mom would take me to work with her. She was a legal secretary at Burbank Studios, and I loved wandering the back ...