User Adoption

Modelling, measuring and planning for successAlice Sowerby, ClusterHQ

Who are they?

What are they doing?

How can we track their behaviours?

Open source user

Who are they?

What are they doing?

Modelling

Diffusion of innovations

Stages

Stage 1: ContactUsers have exposure to the existence of the product, they have heard of it.

Stage 2: AwarenessUsers have an idea of what the product does in a broad sense, they know something about its context in the market

Disposition Threshold

Stages

Stage 3: UnderstandingUsers know what the product can do and broadly what applications it has.

Stage 4: Positive perceptionUsers are building up the idea that this is a product that is of use to them and validating its potential place in their world.

Action Threshold

Stages

Stage 5: ExperimentationUsers validate whether the product does more or less what they think it does by trying to achieve some limited test goals with it.

Stage 6: AdoptionUsers conduct a longer trial period with a real system to evaluate it for further use.

Reversibility Threshold

Stages

Stage 7: InstitutionalisationUsers promote the product to their core stack and use it as a matter of course.

Measuring

Time to round up some data

Data touchpoints

● Contact

● Awareness

● Understanding

● Positive Perception

● Experimentation

● Adoption

● Institutionalisation

Events

Website

Docs

Paid support

Ourblog

3rd party blog

GitHub Downloads

Real data!

Planning

Mashup!

Combining the models

Each user group needs different support as they move through the User Adoption stages.

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User groups’ adoption over time

Innovators

AKA “Techies”

● Contact - They find you

● Awareness - Values their own and peers’ judgement over marketing

● Understanding- Likes to get into technical details straight away

● Positive Perception - Learns by doing and tinkering

● Experimentation - Dive straight in with trying the product for kicks

● Adoption - Personal projects, may be the final step

● Institutionalisation - Only if the innovator is the business owner

Early Adopters

AKA “Visionaries”

● Contact - Seeking a breakthrough opportunity through new product

● Awareness - Looking for glimpses of new solutions

● Understanding- Needs to see benefits to assess a match

● Positive Perception - How can the product be used?

● Experimentation - Proof of concept, fast validation

● Adoption - High value, high risk projects

● Institutionalisation - As soon as possible to realise benefits

Early Majority

AKA “Pragmatists”

● Contact - Exist in a mainstream environment

● Awareness - Seeking safe “forever” changes

● Understanding - Needs to see their own problems solved

● Positive Perception - Product has been validated in the mainstream

● Experimentation - Assessment of risk

● Adoption - Staged, low risk first

● Institutionalisation - Full process and tooling

Late Majority

AKA “Conservatives”

● Contact - Knows mature products in a mainstream environment

● Awareness - Seeks de facto standards

● Understanding - Turn key solutions, serviced offerings

● Positive Perception - Full breadth eco-system and support

● Experimentation - May outsource this, seek consultancy

● Adoption - Managed project to introduce the organisational changes

● Institutionalisation - Full organisational change.

Laggards

AKA “Skeptics”

● Contact - prefers to stay unaware

● Awareness - accepts change as last possible option

● Understanding - Hands off attitude

● Positive Perception - Needs to experience benefit with no risk or outlay

● Experimentation - Rejects unless zero effort

● Adoption - Ideally an invisible, incremental change

● Institutionalisation - Part of the furniture

Actions

Which user group at which stages?

Innovators contact→ adoptionEarly Adopters contact→ understandingEarly Majority contact

Which user group at which stages?Innovators (contact→ adoption)

● Technical information● Blog posts● Access to engineers● Hackathons● 3rd party tech blogs

Which user group at which stages?Early Adopters (contact→ understanding)

● Tech news● Leading edge events● Product vision● Access to decision makers

Which user group at which stages?Early Majority (contact)

● Mainstream events● 3rd party specialists, resellers and integrators

Prepare for:

● Case studies● Support packages

Thanks!

Alice Sowerby