Katie Dove is an applied behavioral scientist and managing director of Irrational Labs, a product design and behavior change lab. She and her team help companies like Airbnb, Microsoft, and Uber answer the question, Why do our customers behave like they do? and then help them design creative solutions that work. We caught up with Katie for an in-person chat at INDUSTRY; in our conversation, we discussed:

Human Value in Products.

Katie unpacked the notion of amplifying user value – human value, to be more precise – stressing the importance of understanding user behavior and needs, rather than just focusing on economic value.

“When I talk about human value,” Katie explains, “I’m actually talking about what’s created for the user in the moment of using a product or an experience online. And so I contrast this a little bit with economic value. When you do that in product,” she adds, “people will come back more, they’ll be more loyal, and they’ll increase their engagement.”

The Power of Feeling Known.

It’s crucial for users to feel recognized and known by product builders. In fact, during her talk, Katie pointed to research that says it’s more important that the consumer feels known than it is for the consumer to know us. As product leaders, we can boost our users’ sense of feeling known through personalized experiences and interactions that build trust, loyalty, and engagement.

Companies like Duolingo are successful because “one of the very first things they do is get to know you,” Katies adds. They go from knowing nothing about their user to knowing a lot by guiding them through their onboarding quiz, which asks about the user’s preferences and increases their expectation that things will be tailored to their needs.”

Balancing Personalization and Privacy.

How do we balance our desire to personalize offerings with our users’ desire for privacy? One way, Katie explains, is by being transparent about data usage and actually asking users questions to ensure they feel comfortable with how their data is being used.

“By asking questions, you’re doing two things,” Katie says. “You’re giving people the opportunity to have some agency in the process, and you’re making it explicit what you’re collecting and why.”

Katie also points to Irrational Labs’ Three B model of behavior change. It involves

Conducting a Behavioral audit, which maps out all the steps required to get to that key behavior
Exploring the user’s psychological Barriers to performing that behavior, and
Increasing the Benefits of taking the desired action.

Be sure to catch the entire episode to learn more from Katie Dove about using behavioral science and psychology to help your team drive user value.

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