Solving User Engagement Problems with Product Sprints

Summary

If your product experiences high churn rates or low user engagement, Allata’s Product Sprints, which expand on Google’s Design Sprints, may offer a solution with user-tested, viable designs. By focusing on understanding user needs, enhancing UX, and solving technical issues, Product Sprints improve onboarding, create relevant value, and ensure strategic alignment. Allata brings multidisciplinary expertise to guide your digital product development, providing clear paths and validated designs for achieving product excellence. 

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Struggling with High Churn Rates?  

Seeing active session recurrences drop? If your product is experiencing low user engagement or satisfaction the answer might lie in a method that’s been a game-changer for Allata clients: Product Sprints. Engagement measures how users interact with a product or service. This includes things like: 

1. Frequency of Use
2. Duration of Use
3. Depth of Interactions or Features Used

Common Causes of Low User Engagement   

Understanding why users disengage is crucial for improving your product. Some of the most common reasons include: 

1. Inadequate Onboarding
2. Poor User Experience 
3. Lack of Value
4. Irrelevant Value
5. Technical Issues or Constraints

How do Product Sprints Help? 

A Product Sprint is an expansion of a Design Sprint, an effective exercise to test new ideas in less than a week made popular by Google. In addition to the user-tested designs that Design Sprints deliver, Product Sprints include strategy, tech, data, and AI recommendations to ensure what is created is feasible, viable, and useable – valuable to both the customer and the business. When leveraging a Product Sprint to improve engagement we follow the process outlined below:

Four Phases of a Product Sprint:

The experience is highly collaborative across all four phases. This is important to ensure that what is delivered is truly valuable. 

Align & Define  

This phase is dedicated to understanding and aligning on the target audience and their goals, desires, business objectives, the current product experience, the tech enabling it, and the utilization data. When reviewing the product, we pay close attention to the onboarding experience and utilization data to determine where there is friction in the product’s “Aha!” moment being realized. The result of this phase is alignment on the improvement opportunities, focus area, and approach. 

Design Sprint 

Here, the focus shifts to improving the user experience. We select a single journey to focus on during the design sprint and collaborate with the client to gain insights and determine the best engagement improvement opportunities. From there we look for inspiration, brainstorm solutions, and create individual solution pitches. Once complete we design screens and create a visual prototype as well as an interview script in prep for testing.  Finally, we conduct live testing with actual users, record results, revise the prototype per the feedback, and re-test if necessary. 

Features & Technology 

Amidst the Design Sprint phase our engineers are compiling feature and tech considerations. They start defining high-level epics and features utilizing a user-centered approach. This includes estimating a preliminary level of effort and budget for each feature. These are compiled into a prioritized backlog using a common framework (e.g., MoSCoW, WSJF, etc.,) and organized into releases. We also create a preliminary future state technology architecture to support the experiences we’ve defined with the client. 

Strategy & Summary 

This final phase focuses on finalizing the future state tech architecture and backlog per the feedback gathered from reviews with stakeholders. We also include an estimate for an MVP release and organize future releases into a product roadmap. An executive summary with the information necessary to make an informed development decision is prepared and presented to project stakeholders in the final week of the project. 

How can a Product Sprint Help with Engagement?

Enhance The Onboarding Process 

In the Align & Define phase we’ll gather insights regarding the to streamline the onboarding process. 

Improve UX 

During the Design Sprint phase, develop and test prototypes to ensure a seamless and intuitive user experience. 

Create Relevant Value 

Throughout the sprint, especially in the Design Sprint phase, prioritize and develop features that meet user needs by integrating continuous user feedback and becoming customer-centric in every step 

Address Technical Issues or Constraints 

Conduct thorough testing during the Design Sprint phase and implement robust solutions to ensure a smooth, error-free experience in the final product. 

Why Choose a Product Sprint? 

Achieving Product Excellence is a challenge, from misaligned stakeholders to unvetted strategies to technical roadblocks. The Allata Product Sprint can help you ensure you’re doing the right things before doing them right: 

1. Breadth of Expertise: 
   Allata brings together specialists in Experience Design, Product Strategy, Technology, Data, and AI. This multidisciplinary expertise ensures that all aspects of digital product design and development are considered. 
2. Strategic Alignment: 
   The initial phase of the sprint focuses on understanding and alignment, ensuring that all stakeholders – from executives to development teams – share a common vision and objectives. Alignment is crucial for success. 
3. Innovative Thinking: 
   The collaborative nature of the sprint fosters curiosity and creativity which often results in out-of-the-box solutions. Allata’s experts understand how to create the space needed for innovation so, together, we’re realizing valuable solutions that address both user needs and business goals. 
4. Validated, User-Tested Designs: 
   Before prepping files for development, designs undergo user testing to determine their usability and value. This ensures what’s being built is feasible, desirable, and viable, reducing the risk of wasting resources building and promoting something customers don’t find useful. 
5. A Clear Path Forward: 
   With validated designs, technical architecture, prioritized feature backlog, and cost and time estimates in hand, clients have a clear improvement plan. Everything needed to make informed decisions about the best next step for your digital product is provided and we’re ready to execute that plan with you. 

When to Consider a Product Sprint

If you struggle to consistently deliver value to your customers through your product, your team is too busy to dedicate time to shaping a new digital product or optimizing an existing one, or you know your product needs enhancement but are uncertain where to start, a Product Sprint can provide the strategic alignment, innovative thinking, and the structured approach you need to make valuable progress. Let us help you turn uncertainty into clarity and deliver an improved product experience in just six weeks.

Conclusion 

The Allata Product Sprint is more than just an experience design exercise; it’s a necessary first step for building outstanding digital products. By bringing together design, strategy, technology, data, and AI, Allata ensures you’re building the right thing for the right reasons. If your product is struggling with low user engagement or satisfaction, a Product Sprint will get to the root of the problem and provide a solution to boost your product’s value.  

Achieve Product Excellence with Allata 

When you choose Allata as your partner in making and developing a digital product that users love you gain expertise across experience design, strategy, tech, data, and AI to help you stay well ahead of competitors. See how and talk to an expert today.