I've worked on a white-labeled product for a few years now, and here's what we do:
- Perform user testing on your product AT the customer site - recruit consumers who use Company X and test Company X's product (be honest that you are not testing on behalf of Company X, maybe say you represent a potential competitor). This is pretty easy if Company X is a fairly big/mainstream brand; if not, it's hard to find consumers and you risk alienating them). - BETTER: Maintain a "generic"/your-company branded version of the product and research based on that (beta site, usability testing, surveys, etc.) It's not the SAME experience but it's a good way to assess basic usability and get factual user research (do you own X? what behaviors do you perform?). Big areas where it differs: consumers trust your customer's brand-image and you don't have one; hard to pick the same representative consumer types. - BEST: Provide turnkey user testing tools to your customer. You built the product - you know what you want to research. They probably want to do user testing anyways, and are short on resources. You write a test script and build a prototype and hand it over to them to have their user research department to do the actual testing. They'll probably modify your script somewhat, but in most cases I've seen, they are so overworked that they're happy to use what you give them. Depending on size of customer/state of relationship, you may even be able to sell this as a value-added solution. We also ask for their "voice of the customer" input and results of any user surveys our customers do, but to be honest: a) they're often reluctant to hand those over, and b) it's often skewed by a vocal minority. That's why it's so critical that we do testing on our generic version and help "shape" the user testing our customers do. It enables us to say "yes, we see that 20 people wrote in to ask for crazy power-user feature X", but in our testing, not a single consumer subject expressed any interest in power-user feature X. Instead, a majority of them expressed strong interest in usability enhancement Y, which suggests that the 'voice of the customer' input may not be coming from your core audience." Cindy The Experience is the Product - http://www.cindyalvarez.com On Wed, Jun 4, 2008 at 11:42 AM, Dan Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Modern web marketing and design strategies suggest that online products > should be highly responsive to customer feedback. Sites like > GetSatisfaction.com further escalate and highlight conversations about > products, encouraging companies to actively participate in them. > Ultimately, > the point is to narrow the communications gap between a company and its > customers. > > Here, then, is a logistical question: what if your product is > "white-label"*. How can I, as a company that makes a particular product, > participate in such a conversation when the product doesn't bear my name? > > Obviously, the feedback could be filtered through the white label customer, > but that strikes me as a bit "old school" (and not in the good sense of > that > phrase). In other words, the conversation would happen between the consumer > and the company supplying the product, but that seems to defeat the purpose > of "narrowing the communications gap." > > Thoughts? > > -- Dan > > * White label products are those that are created and customized on behalf > of another company. If Starbucks were white label, my customers would drink > their coffee but it would bear the name "Brown's Overcooked Roast". They > might also sell their coffee to my competitor or a roaster in another > market, which would bear the name of that company. > > -- > > Dan Brown, Principal • (301) 801-4850 > EightShapes, LLC • eightshapes.com > Also at: communicatingdesign.com • greenonions.com > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
