 Thank you. So hi everybody So I'll be talking to you about three of the gifts that my users gave me And you might be wondering what kind of gifts I'm talking about Well, it's not material gifts like candy or flowers or socks at Christmas I'll be talking about a material gifts the kind of gifts that Help you grow as a person and that usually lasts forever So I guess I'll try to show you how we can develop our own skills by simply being there for the people who are Using our products and receiving everything that they have to give us Few words about myself If the clicker were working, maybe I need to get closer Okay, so this is me after the first successful bicycle ride this spring And apart from biking and getting my legs all bruised in the process I've been in the form building business since 2011 never got bored surprisingly and Since 2015 I've been working on captain form which is a WordPress plugin for building form So you can build with it like conic forms payment forms registration service and so on now you can imagine that it wasn't easy for us to Endure the WordPress market with all the great competitors out there like gravity forms and ninja forms and so on but we did manage to grow a pretty solid user base and To build a good image for our plugin and we believe that one of our main strengths is this focus That we place on listening to our users. I Listen with the same enthusiasm to happy users to neutral users and to piss off users because every interaction is helping me Grow in some way and is making me more able to build better Solutions now the things that I've learned from users they go beyond These three gifts that I'll be talking today But these three might just be the most important ones and they are the gift of building solid roadmaps The gift of teaching efficiently and the gift of working in a happy team So to kick it off with the first one The road map it is your products journey from point a to point B and C and so on Your product can be anything from a plug-in that you are developing to a theme that you are Designing or a website that you are building for a client and each of these points They represent a new feature that you are going to implement or a new opportunity that you are Going to take and it's kept informed our process of building the road map consists of three steps Generating ideas Validating them and prioritizing what results out of the first two steps and to start with a real-life example, I have the bad habit of planning almost anything and Since weekends they only come well Once a week and don't last for very long I plan them ahead them and what I do is write on one of my men a list every Activity idea that comes to my mind like Go by King Play tennis with my best friend Dorina Read the book. Do you talk funny by David? Michael Some crazy stuff like still a card and some serious stuff like plan the next works print and After my list is finished. That's where the validation starts and here is where the concepts of value and effort come in So I think about what is the value of this item and what kind of effort does it entail? So go by King It has a lot of value because it is good for my health and it also Relaxes me and in terms of effort There's little resources Involve just time resources about three hours Play tennis with Dorina. It is also valuable for more or less the same reasons But Dorina is out of town this weekend. So it would be quite complicated to get her to the tennis court Read the book. Do you talk funny? Well, this is valuable because it has a lot of tips on how to make my presentations more funny, which is well not a bad idea and The effort invested it is once again reasonable. So just time resources about six hours Still a car Now here the value is debatable depending on the type of car that I steal But in the long run the effort it involves both time and money resources like three years in prison and financial damage And finally plan the next worksprint. It is valuable Because my team needs this planning and this task involves not only me but also other people But here the effort is debatable because on the one hand I am saving some energy for Monday But on the other hand, this is a work task that would take up from my already short weekend So after I finish I finished this validation I can easily, you know, exclude the items that are not feasible So play tennis with Dorina and still that car. They are dropped from the list and I'm left with three items that are now need to Prioritize and what I do is think about the value versus effort ratio So go biking it comes in first because it requires the least amount of effort Read the book comes in second and Plan the next worksprint comes in third Now it is quite the same with product roadmaps because the same three steps apply Generating ideas validating them and prioritizing what results Generating ideas now this means writing down every new feature that you think about That your users or your competitors users think about That your team or your boss think about or that any other stakeholder thinks about Now the human brain it can only save so much information So it's a good idea to write everything down to keep things in a centralized way And also the human brain is quite biased So try not to approve or dismiss any idea from the beginning before going through the validation process And in what the validation is concerned, you know Every stakeholder usually believes that his own idea is the most important But if I take for granted my boss's idea, for example, because well, here's my boss And then I invest two months into building it two months of resources But afterwards I don't bring in additional revenue than I am the one who is responsible for it So the two concepts come in value and effort and in order to assess for example, the value of Ideas there are certain questions to be asked and they all revolve around our users For example How many users would find this feature useful? Is it just one lonely rider? Or are we talking about half of the users of our product? What would users be able to achieve through this feature? Is it something minor or something with greater impact? How much would users be well be willing to pay for this feature? Does it match the scope of my product? And is it a feature that will boost the overall product image? in terms of effort some questions to be asked are How many developers are needed for a good implementation and how much time will it take them to do that? What type of maintenance will this feature need after it is launched and what kind of support resources will be required? Also, how easy will it be to communicate the benefits of this feature because every resource that we have development support or Marketing wise so every resource that we invest into a certain feature Well, it is not invested into a different feature which might be more valuable Now in order to answer these questions sorry in order to answer these questions to a Assess the value of a new idea and to see whether the effort invested is worth it or not We turn to our users again and here are some techniques for user validation interviews with power users that are aimed at Gathering their feedback on the topic and at assessing their interest into this potential new feature In app service that have more or less the same aim But are focused rather on a quantitative result than a qualitative one Front-end polls that list not just one but multiple possible new features and that address not only current users But also potential new ones Competitor research now if a competitor already has this feature or a similar feature How is it working out for them and what do their users think about it? Launching minimum viable features Now this means putting in production the core functionality of a new feature which requires little development resources and help Getter a quick user response so that you know whether to move forward or not and this can also be Combined with some maybe testing Okay, so using such questions and such techniques. We are able to Remove some of the features from our list while others features will stay and these can easily be prioritized by Assessing the value versus effort ratio and When my boss asks me why I haven't implemented his idea I'll be able to justify any decision that I've made and to explain to him how I built the Most valuable road map for our product based on what I've learned from its actual Users because because all of the input that I gather from users that I analyze and filter It helps me become a better or more confident and more trustworthy road map planner I'm done with the more theoretical part So we'll be moving on to something more relaxing the second gift that I've received from my users is the gift of teaching efficiently and Here I'd like to tell you a little story so a couple of weeks ago I was boarding this plane and I was like extremely thirsty But I hadn't bought water in the airport because it was like six bucks or something which seemed too much for the basic human right of hydrating So I was sitting on this plane and waiting for the cabin crew to to come but they weren't coming and I was getting you know More and more thirsty and extremely impatient to get my beverage and Then at one point I stood up from my chair for some reason and then I sat back down, but did it quite violently Totally not on purpose and the woman behind me said Next a smile. Can't you do his after hints at them? Do has my name coffee for shoot it? And I was like English, please and she said so next time Can you please sit down more gently because you have spilled my coffee and I was like how come you already have a beverage? right, so We had you know different concerns different Priorities at that point in time. We saw things differently so If I were in her shoes for example I would have definitely been pissed off by the idiot who sat down brutally and spilled my beverage Speaking about shoes. I like to put myself in other people's shoes because this way I get to learn How the world works a lot faster and what I love about users is the fact that they give me every day That chance to be in somebody else's shoes to learn about diversity and about seeing things from a different perspective and Here are just a few ways in which we are different from our users. I Know my own product kept informed very well I am usually more technical than my users are and this product is the main focus of my activity Whereas for users, it is simply a tool So we are more knowledgeable than our users. I Use certain terms to designate certain concepts and my users They may use the same terms to refer to something else. So we understand terms differently Some people never use an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence Others do others add three exclamation marks to signal how pissed they are and others add three exclamation marks Well, just for the sake of it. So we have different ways of expressing ourselves I'm from Romania. My users may be from Finland. They may be from the States from Japan So we are culturally different Also, I may be having a wonderful day while my users may be having a very shitty one or vice versa We live separate lives. So you can see that We are quite different from what another one another and what matters in the end is the pure objective unbiased Information and that's what I'm trying to reach in every interaction that I have with users. I think about What is this user really trying to say and how can I give a reply that makes the most sense to him? Me and my colleagues, you know, we love each other, but I know I can get a tiny bit annoying when I keep asking them Are you sure that's what the user meant? Are you reading between the lines and are you using the simplest words to explain the solution? And this goes far beyond support tickets It applies to how we build the interface to how we promote the product to how we write documentation and To give you just just a small example We have this feature that allows users to have the form pop up on the page when the event on window leave occurs But that's not what our documentation says It doesn't say have the form pop up on the page when the event on window leave occurs in the browser It says have the form pop up when the visitor leaves the page Because the greater part of our users They wouldn't understand what on window leave means that is not their job their job is to run their businesses in the fields of HR Education marketing gardening horse breeding or anything else and my job is to communicate what my product has to offer in a way in the language that makes sense to both of us So When we try to grow user retention to keep users coming back to our product or to our website What we are actually trying to do is teach users how they can get value from our product and Being a good teacher means Communicating valuable information in a way that relates to the person who is receiving it right so Through their diversity users can really help us be better teachers You just have to put yourself in that state of mind where you are really willing to listen to what they have to say finally the gift of working in a happy team and Before I move on with this one. I would like to ask you if you know that joke About the the programmer who gets sent to the grocery store by his wife. Do you know it? Can you share it with us? Tell me and I'll tell them No, you're shy Okay, then I'll tell you for you. So so a developer gets sent to the grocery store by his wife and His wife says Buy a carton of milk and if they have eggs by 10 So what do you think that the developer brought home tons of milk exactly? Yes, it's quite expectable. So That's what the wife said. She said buy milk and if they have eggs if that condition is true then buy 10 so I'm using this example to Emphasize the importance of knowing the context of discussing the details Because a team without a context is usually not a happy team Back in the day our tasks They were pretty much like multiply a by B and display the result So I'm keeping it simplistic and the team did it But they had little passion in doing so and sooner or later the debate used to start like What does a really stand for is it a number of apples or the number of apricots? What does be stand for is it a number of blueberries or the number of bananas and a see really the cost or something else? Even when you know requirements are very well Detailed there's a high chance for things to be understood differently and go sideways So step by step we understood how important it was to invest time into Simply discussing the user scenario with the entire team for example Who are we doing this for? Well Jerry and what does Jerry do he gives programming workshops? What does he need our forums to register attendees and to collect ticket payments? Are his tickets priced differently? Yes, and can you send up multiple attendees through the same form submission? Yes Great then a is the price level B is the number of attendees and C is The total amount that we need to pass to people Let's do this So getting the team involved from the beginning helps ask the right questions from the get-go Also this way the team gets to care about the user and sometimes makes it a personal goal to help the user succeed so The work is more efficient and the team is more motivated and Yeah Spaced out Right, so the work is more efficient This way and now you know there are days when I'm a bit under the weather and not really in the mood for doing Anything and then somebody from my team comes and asks So has Jerry replied yet did he launch his new workshop and does he need anything else from our side and This you know It makes me think like God bless Jerry and his workshop for keeping our team Helping keep our team motivated and putting a bit more passion and purpose in our daily activity So I guess that's it These were the three gifts that I wanted to talk to you about so to sum it up it is the gift of Building solid roadmaps that we receive from our users through their input the gift of being a better teacher through the diversity of our users and The gift of working in a happy team through this usage scenarios that We discuss about and that help us bond as a team So I encourage you To look beyond every interaction that you have with your users to really invest yourselves into these Interactions to put some love into it because we receive from our users at least as much as we give them Thank you and before we get to the question part Edmund actually gave me an idea I also have some swag from captain form it's a USB drive that can be put on your keychain it has eight Gigabytes, but I only have 10 of them So if you want, please stop by the speakers table and I'll be happy to give you one So if you have any questions Thank you, Alexandra. Are there any questions for her? Anybody in the gallery? No, I can't see very well. Oh wait there right there Thank you very much for a talk first I want to say you know the website quora.com when they share different experience quora work Yeah, quora. They basically share different life hacks. Yeah, of course Yeah, so I've read once that if you head to the airport just take a plastic bottle with you because in many Ports that have those fountains that pretty much have the same water that you can drink so you don't have to buy Okay, it's related to it Yeah, and the question is have you ever had some Finding experience when you didn't when the surf misunderstood the customer and your actions were not Precisely what they're meant some some funny case maybe. Oh Yes, I mean there are plenty of them But I can't think of a specific example right now But but there are tons of them. So I'll just share them with you afterwards Because you know, sometimes it's very Frustrating other times. It's hilarious and I actually remember one thing But that's not funny It was it was we had a national I mean two national holidays in a row in my country, Romania And it was also a weekend. So our team was you know, they most of them They weren't working those days and we had this this user a paying customer And he had he had an interesting scenario in which he needed to to receive some PDF form submissions for some university admissions and We had a bug We had a bug that was cozy causing those PDFs not to be Generated like they should have been But we had fixed it. I mean we managed to fix it in a matter of hours and In theory the client didn't have a problem anymore but somehow he didn't get that and He was still pissed because Because his PDFs were not working correctly, but actually they were and He left us a one-star review in the plugin directory and he called us so amateurs and After you know spending hours with the few devs that I had to fix his problem and actually managing to fix it We received that that that one-star review and it was like painful at that at that point So, yeah, I think this this goes into the user diversity pool, you know where you can't always Be at the same level or speak at the same level and you don't get your message across in the way that you want to Anything else? Okay, well, thank you very much Alexandra. Thank you. That's great. Thank you. Yeah, so let's give her a round of applause