secretGeek reviewed Badass: Making Users Awesome by Kathy Sierra
Review of 'Badass: Making Users Awesome' on 'GoodReads'
5 stars
Read it! Also watch the video.
Paperback, 286 pages
English language
Published Aug. 8, 2015 by O'Reilly.
Imagine you’re in a game with one objective: a bestselling product or service. The rules? No marketing budget, no PR stunts, and it must be sustainably successful. No short-term fads.
This is not a game of chance. It is a game of skill and strategy.
And it begins with a single question: given competing products of equal pricing, promotion, and perceived quality, why does one outsell the others?
The answer doesn’t live in the sustainably successful products or services. The answer lives in those who use them.
Our goal is to craft a strategy for creating successful users. And that strategy is full of surprising, counter-intuitive, and astonishingly simple techniques that don’t depend on a massive marketing or development budget. Techniques typically overlooked by even the most well-funded, well-staffed product teams.
Every role is a key player in this game. Product development, engineering, marketing, user experience, support―everyone on the team. …
Imagine you’re in a game with one objective: a bestselling product or service. The rules? No marketing budget, no PR stunts, and it must be sustainably successful. No short-term fads.
This is not a game of chance. It is a game of skill and strategy.
And it begins with a single question: given competing products of equal pricing, promotion, and perceived quality, why does one outsell the others?
The answer doesn’t live in the sustainably successful products or services. The answer lives in those who use them.
Our goal is to craft a strategy for creating successful users. And that strategy is full of surprising, counter-intuitive, and astonishingly simple techniques that don’t depend on a massive marketing or development budget. Techniques typically overlooked by even the most well-funded, well-staffed product teams.
Every role is a key player in this game. Product development, engineering, marketing, user experience, support―everyone on the team. Even if that team is a start-up of one. Armed with a surprisingly overlooked science and a unique POV, we can can reduce the role of luck. We can build sustainably successful products and services that rely not on unethical persuasive marketing tricks but on helping our users have deeper, richer experiences. Not just in the moments while they’re using our product but, more importantly, in the moments when they aren’t.
Read it! Also watch the video.
Some good information in here. Unfortunately the format, which starts off as clever and easy to read, eventually becomes too light and distracting. This makes it too easy to just skim past things.
Others have loved the format, so obviously this is a matter of opinion. And some of the information is worth the effort. But I'm not sure I would again buy a book that is mostly clip art.