Critical User Journeys: How Google’s Product Teams React When Growth Slows
AUSTIN CHANG, Group Product Manager at Google, former Head of Engagement Product at Pinterest, recently discussed using Critical User Journeys to reignite product growth when things slow down.
Austin's Critical User Journey Process
Austin shares his process for “clarify[ing] the different steps needed to unlock product growth:”
- Define the Critical User Journey. In the early days, avoid over-complicating the user experience. Focus on “a single use case with a specific goal and include the surrounding context for the user.” Austin uses the example of Pinterest's Critical User Journey: users browse for style ideas, curate their own “look books,” and eventually progress to buying outfits through the platform.
- Be “ruthless and specific” in measurement. MAU (Monthly Active Users) and “sum total measurement metric[s]” are vanity metrics. Instead, track “One user acquisition metric at the top of the funnel” and “one user engagement metric further down the funnel.” For Google Assistant, Austin measures “user activation based on the user making at least one successful query that day on a specific surface... in a specific country... using a specific feature.”
- Focus on your product levers. Metrics are only useful if you can influence them with a product lever, “something that is movable and measurable that connects projects... to top-line metrics.” If your top-line metric is L7 Engagement—the “number of days a user has been active on the product during the last seven days”— Austin suggests focusing on experiments that drive “additional actions per user.”
- Don't fix growth by adding features. As Austin explains, “Growth by product addition is hard to measure and rarely scalable.” The more activation flows added, the harder it is to assess their impact, eventually creating a Rube Goldberg machine: a product that solves a simple problem in a needlessly complicated way. Instead, “Tak[e] a step back to simplify and... free the product to grow.”
- Let engaged users show the way. Engaged users provide the best pathway for future growth. Austin says “If you know exactly what actions and steps your best users took, you should try to replicate their journey for others.” Identify the actions taken by your most engaged cohort and create “engagement loops” to nudge other users down the same path.
Key Quote
“Before trying different growth tactics like throwing spaghetti at a wall, startups need to take a fresh look at their users, evaluate their product end goals and re-define the journey they want their users to take to get there.”
Why We Think This Matters
Increasing growth with new features and activation flows is a short-term fix, and one that risks hiding the underlying problem beneath layers of experimentation.
Instead, be selective with your experiments. Identify high-leverage opportunities using Pinterest's own evaluation framework, as shared by Jeff Chang, the company's Technical Growth Lead:
- “Hypothesis: Why will this idea have a significant impact on metrics?
- Investment: How much time will we have to invest in this project?
- Precedent: Is there a precedent for this working in the past?
- Experience: Is this change a good user experience?”
Summarized by Reforge. Original article by Austin Chang • Group Product Manager @ Google
AUSTIN CHANG, Group Product Manager at Google, former Head of Engagement Product at Pinterest, recently discussed using Critical User Journeys to reignite product growth when things slow down.
Austin's Critical User Journey Process
Austin shares his process for “clarify[ing] the different steps needed to unlock product growth:”
- Define the Critical User Journey. In the early days, avoid over-complicating the user experience. Focus on “a single use case with a specific goal and include the surrounding context for the user.” Austin uses the example of Pinterest's Critical User Journey: users browse for style ideas, curate their own “look books,” and eventually progress to buying outfits through the platform.
- Be “ruthless and specific” in measurement. MAU (Monthly Active Users) and “sum total measurement metric[s]” are vanity metrics. Instead, track “One user acquisition metric at the top of the funnel” and “one user engagement metric further down the funnel.” For Google Assistant, Austin measures “user activation based on the user making at least one successful query that day on a specific surface... in a specific country... using a specific feature.”
- Focus on your product levers. Metrics are only useful if you can influence them with a product lever, “something that is movable and measurable that connects projects... to top-line metrics.” If your top-line metric is L7 Engagement—the “number of days a user has been active on the product during the last seven days”— Austin suggests focusing on experiments that drive “additional actions per user.”
- Don't fix growth by adding features. As Austin explains, “Growth by product addition is hard to measure and rarely scalable.” The more activation flows added, the harder it is to assess their impact, eventually creating a Rube Goldberg machine: a product that solves a simple problem in a needlessly complicated way. Instead, “Tak[e] a step back to simplify and... free the product to grow.”
- Let engaged users show the way. Engaged users provide the best pathway for future growth. Austin says “If you know exactly what actions and steps your best users took, you should try to replicate their journey for others.” Identify the actions taken by your most engaged cohort and create “engagement loops” to nudge other users down the same path.
Key Quote
“Before trying different growth tactics like throwing spaghetti at a wall, startups need to take a fresh look at their users, evaluate their product end goals and re-define the journey they want their users to take to get there.”
Why We Think This Matters
Increasing growth with new features and activation flows is a short-term fix, and one that risks hiding the underlying problem beneath layers of experimentation.
Instead, be selective with your experiments. Identify high-leverage opportunities using Pinterest's own evaluation framework, as shared by Jeff Chang, the company's Technical Growth Lead:
- “Hypothesis: Why will this idea have a significant impact on metrics?
- Investment: How much time will we have to invest in this project?
- Precedent: Is there a precedent for this working in the past?
- Experience: Is this change a good user experience?”
Summarized by Reforge. Original article by Austin Chang • Group Product Manager @ Google