Digital Product Feature Audit; the JUMIA Nigeria App (for PMs)
Product Management is a profession in the art of editing and research; editing features in digital products, removing, updating, replacing, and making all kinds of tweaks that would promise the slightest increase in any of the three targets of product management; Usability, Viability and Feasibility of the product.
In this short article I would take a look at some factors that determine how to manage features of a digital product.
· Percentage of users
· User growth or decline
· Usage frequency
Type of feature (Administrative feature, exclusive features)
High Frequency by Many Users:
When a product has high usage frequency and used by many persons, I would consider a more protective approach to keeping it up to date, better positioning it in the market for higher brand value, and looking for ways to create micro-moats making it harder for competition to copy. Like the One-click Purchase by Amazon, brands could protect such innovative features from being copied by the competition.
High Frequency by Few Users:
When a feature is being used frequently but by few of the customer base, this could have many implications for the organization. A good example of this might be the Rooms feature on Zoom. This feature could be used by few percentage of the users but very vital to their task in cases like having a meeting involving many departments of the company that needs to have separate discussions within the larger meeting.
In such case you could decide to increase the visibility of this feature on the app by better placement or use advertisement to drive adoption by more users.
Another case might be to spin off a new product with that feature is that wouldn’t erode usage of the chief product or spin-off the feature for a subscription plan.
Few Users with Low Frequency:
If the feature is new to market, this might just be a growth trend, if not, it might be a sign for the PM to either reinvent the feature in a more usable way or kill the feature. Killing a feature might be hard if the leadership has vouched for it or high investments has been made in it the case of Google+.
Many Users with Low Frequency:
Many administrative features fall into this category like Account Feature on Jumia, account opening, password reset, two factor authentication, Synch phone contacts on Facebook messenger and Twitter and change admin on WhatsApp.
Other features in this space might need a better placement, notification if applicable or higher awareness through marketing.
Get a holistic view of usage trends
For Usage growth and decline, the devil is right in the details. Christmas sales season could be responsible for the increase in “Call to Order” in Jumia Foods as users may be pressed for time after Christmas visitors exceeded the prior food provision and delivery is needed urgently. Exchange rate may be responsible for a lowering usage of Jumia Global, increase in fuel prices might affect the price of delivery hence making Jumia Prime more attractive for regular shoppers.
A product manager is expected to understand external factors that might effect the appetite of the users and the general market dynamics of the product.
Always look for the story behind the story.
The presentation of Jumia Nigeria as a case study is with my personal opinion of the product, the brand, product and features.
Copyright of Chukwebuka Justus, a growth and Strategy consultant for tech businesses.
