Testing for Value Risk
I watched an Andrew Breen webinar where he was interviewed by Holy Hester-Reilly. It resonated with me because I am getting set to not resubscribe to several EdTech tools. The value proposition of these products has eroded over time. We had a positive perceived value that led us to purchase the products. Over time, the product didn’t sustain its realized value and the value is now below the cost. It is important for EdTech tools to become an integral part of the teachers’ daily workflow. If a tool is only used with a particular unit or lesson plan, then the product will have a difficult time sustaining value. These companies should have performed a periodic (or continuous) review of their value risk.
Who does value risk assessment? Product usability research focuses on the user experience (UI/UX), which is the functionality and how users are using the product. It probes for a clear value proposition and how the product makes the user’s life better. Value research is concerned with deeper research into the psychological, emotional, and social experiences that users have with a product (think 5-why’s protocol). It involves understanding the buyer's psychology of why they bought the product.
Love that there is a brief discussion at the end of the interview (Lab Notes)
- “I always come back to value risk. That’s, the one that people forget, ignore, or just undervalue.” — Dina Levitan
- “Conducting value research often means holding uncomfortable tensions related to the unknown and parallel hypotheses.” — Mark Enache
- “The Holy Gain of research is finding multiple kinds of evidence pointing to the same thing. This is the early signs of Product Market Fit” — Dina Levitan & Holy Hester-Reilly
- Paper prototypes facilitate continuous and rapid product discovery. How fast can you learn? — Dina Levitan
- “You need to bring back evidence to support the direction you are going”— Holy Hester-Reilly
