blog what have users of google wave and new mums got in common?

Understanding your audience seems to be so often sidelined, as though recipients are annoying details.

 

What?  Take Google Wave for example, the powers that be in Google's ivory towers were riding the crest of a very successful period. They were invincible.  Everyone knew about their search dominance and there was a general warmth towards the brand that Microsoft could only dream about.

 

So, in their infinite wisdom and with money to burn, Google decided to transform the way we interact with computers by creating Google Wave.  Teams of uber-geeks will have coded day and night, fuelled on Red Bull, delivered by roller-skating robots in their super-cool (but geeky) offices.

 

The launch comes, accompanied with much hype and an 80 minute video on what it is.  

 

And therein lies the problem; understanding the audience.  Today, one year on from launch, it has been shelved.  Why? Who on earth has 80 minutes to go through a video delivered by utter nerds for a product meant for the masses? I'd like to think we're technically very competent. Did we grasp the concept? No. So how is the computer-using layman meant to have a hope of using Wave?

 

What has this got to do with new mums?

 

We came across the same issue a couple of years ago, when a client was wanting to gain an understanding of their audience by doing some market research.  Great idea, but the project was pulled because in trying to gain that understanding, there wasn't enough thought around the recipient's needs to make it work.

 

We were asked to artwork-up a questionnaire to be sent to new mums to gauge feedback on the client's service and also gain an insight into that person's buying habits. The achilles heal in this project was no-one had actually put themselves in the shoes of the mum.

 

Imagine being sleep deprived, possibly a bit disorientated and most definitely time-poor.  Then one day a questionnaire arrives through the post from your favourite brand to do with your newborn.  You dive in and it takes 1 and a quarter hours to complete.  It's not going to happen is it?  The project was shelved (unlike Google, the client had the sense to stop before taking the plunge).

 

So, (former) users of Google Wave and mums probably have little in common, hence Wave not making it to the mass-market. The key similarity is a thorough understanding of the audience is pivotal to the success of a project.  Whether communicating with people or developing for people, it is not company opinion that matters; it's customer need.