Wondering how to get users to interact more with your product or service? You’re not alone. It’s a common problem and one with a common-sense solution - give users what they want when they want it. But how exactly do you do that? Through our three principles of user engagement.

That’s a question we often get from clients. They tell us people aren’t logging in to their app enough or using the fancy new features they built. Users don’t seem to know how to engage with the product or they’re not taking advantage of upgrade options.

Here’s the not-so-secret trick to improving user engagement - __give people what they want when they want it.__

While that feels like a common-sense goal, we've come across plenty of product teams who have lost their way in a dense fog of competing business priorities and urgent feature requests. 

This is Part 1 in our series on the three main principles of user engagement that we use to help clients reach their business and UX goals. Read [Part 1](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/boost-user-engagement-jobs-to-be-done "Part 1") and [Part 2](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/boost-user-engagement-anticipate-user-needs "Part 2").

For an overview of our general approach to the topic, [watch my video conversation](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/boost-user-engagement "watch my video conversation") with our lead product strategist, Alicia Fremling.

## Help Users Know How to Get Where They’re Going
Many product requests from the business assume that bigger and louder is better. If people aren't using a feature or responding to an offer, it's because we're not talking about it enough, or the button needs to be red and the text a larger font. These assumptions overlook the fact that you may not be[ prioritizing your users’ top jobs-to-be-done](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/boost-user-engagement-jobs-to-be-done "prioritizing your users’ top jobs-to-be-done") or [anticipating their needs](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/boost-user-engagement-anticipate-user-needs "anticipating their needs"). Even if you are, your signs need to first offer users a clear direction before they promote a specific feature or service.

Imagine you were on a road trip and the only signs you saw on the highway pointed you to the next McDonald’s. That could be useful when you’re hungry and looking for food, especially if you love McDonald's. But that could also be a very long, winding, and frustrating path to your ultimate destination. 

That’s why all road signs are contextual. The simple easy-to-read green signs tell you how far to the next city. The signs with the odd shapes and numbers on them tell you what road you’re on. These directional signs help you make sure you're getting where you need to go. Meanwhile, billboards are strategically placed where you’re most likely to act on them, like when McDonald's is coming up at the next exit. 

User engagement is a natural response to contextual messaging. Unfortunately, many products get bogged down by random messages that look splashy but just get in the way. We’ve seen too many products littered with promos some other team said everybody needs to know about. These banners and pop-ups take up half the scroll trying to force users to do something they don’t want to do while impeding their ability to do what they do want.

For example, say your business wants to push paperless billing. Many products will pop up a full-page banner immediately after the user logs in to get their attention right away. Most users will feel annoyed and frustrated as they click out of it as fast as possible to get to what they came for. You're more likely to get higher conversion rates if you present a friendly opt-in message after they've completed a related task, like checking their account balance.

People don’t come to your product to see an ad or marketing message or to fill out a survey about their experience. They come to do a job. Help them accomplish that job first, __then__ offer them contextual messaging that fills an additional need for them (and for the business).

## Why Boost User Engagement?
This is the question that should come first but often doesn't get asked at all. It’s great to boost user engagement, especially if you have the time and resources to do it right using these three principles. But you also have to take a hard look at why you’re focused on user engagement in the first place and how you’re measuring it. 

Are you trying to move a specific metric like user growth rate, mobile downloads, or registrations and subscriptions? Are you getting pressure from a certain business unit to promote a high-priority product or service that hasn’t gotten a lot of traction?

Define your goals in terms of measurable success metrics. Then make sure those metrics are actually measuring user engagement, and not just giving your marketing team fun numbers to toss around.

Thoughtful design that anticipates the needs of your users keeps them coming back for more. But it can’t be built in a day. It takes a constant focus on continuous improvement.

To boost user engagement you first need to understand your user’s needs and the core jobs they want to get done. Then, you can look at the business goals and find the sweet spot where the two overlap.

We know what it takes to shepherd a product through that process. [Start a conversation](https://drawbackwards.com/contact "Start a Conversation ") about how we can help you boost user engagement and keep you and your product on the right track.

How Do You Boost User Engagement?

How to Boost User Engagement:  Provide the Right Context

We get this question from our clients all the time. They tell us people aren’t logging in to their app enough or using the fancy new features they built. Users don’t seem to know how to engage with the product or they’re not taking advantage of upgrade options.

Here’s the not-so-secret trick to improving user engagement - __give people what they want when they want it.__

While that feels like a common-sense goal, we've come across plenty of product teams who have lost their way in a dense fog of competing business priorities and urgent feature requests. 

Through a series of blog posts this month, we’re exploring the three main principles of user engagement that we use to help clients reach their business and UX goals:

1. Prioritize Jobs-To-Be-Done
2. Anticipate User Needs
3. Provide the Right Context

Thoughtful design that anticipates the needs of your users keeps them coming back for more. But it can’t be built in a day. It takes a constant focus on continuous improvement, from initial research that uncovers the needs of both users and the business to creating and iterating on solutions to find what works best. 

Watch my conversation below with our lead product strategist, Alicia Fremling, check out the blog posts to learn more about each of the three principles, and then [start a conversation](https://drawbackwards.com/contact) about how we can help you engage more with your users.

<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/512727556" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

__How do you boost user engagement?__

That’s a question we often get from clients. They tell us people aren’t logging in to their app enough or using the fancy new features they built. Users don’t seem to know how to engage with the product or they’re not taking advantage of upgrade options.

Here’s the not-so-secret trick to improving user engagement -__ give people what they want when they want it.__

While that feels like a common-sense goal, we've come across plenty of product teams who have lost their way in a dense fog of competing business priorities and urgent feature requests. 

This is Part 2 in our series on the three main principles of user engagement that we use to help clients reach their business and UX goals. Read [Part 1](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/boost-user-engagement-jobs-to-be-done "Part 1"). 

For an overview of our general approach to the topic, [watch my video conversation](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/boost-user-engagement "watch my video conversation") with our lead product strategist, Alicia Fremling.

## Dissolve Complexity and Create Delight
Once you’ve [identified the core jobs to be done](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/boost-user-engagement-jobs-to-be-done "identify jobs to be done"), you can begin the process of building solutions that address real user needs. To do this, we encourage our clients to take the time to build journey maps. This helps you identify where users are getting stuck in the current process and how you can help them. 

![User Journey Map](//images.ctfassets.net/6ygji0ixcksy/2GjwKapIwoUQqygAuigMus/7bdad4c58627004962a04813ba5fd676/Journey-Map-2-1.png)

If you’ve done the research on your users and taken the time to map their pain points, you’ll start to see opportunities to anticipate their needs. This is where the true magic of user engagement happens. These are the places in the user interface and moments in the journey where you can deliver what the user needs and wants before they even realize they need or want it. 

Like an enthralling book or movie, it takes thoughtful planning and trial and error to create spontaneous and delightful moments in a product. When sketching and brainstorming solutions, you need to consider the entire experience.

All the touchpoints you have with your users - from text alerts to emails to phone calls - play a role in the user experience. Thoughtful design that anticipates the needs of your users keeps them coming back for more. But it can’t be built in a day. It takes a constant focus on continuous improvement.

One of our favorite examples of a company that understands the value of anticipating needs is QuikTrip. This Oklahoma-based convenience store chain consistently outperforms larger competitors like Circle K and it’s on Forbes’ list of the largest privately-held companies. How? By focusing on thoughtful operating decisions that [anticipate customer (and employee) needs](https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6708.html). 

First, they design their stores to be easy to navigate with organized shelves, clean bathrooms and parking lots, and quick and friendly service from loyal and well-compensated employees. They focus on continual process improvements that remove or add steps based on real-time customer feedback and employee input.

Every store has three checkout terminals and they batch process their credit card transactions at the end of the day to prevent long customer lines. They even offer three times as many gas pumps as competitors, so there’s always an open pump. This keeps customers and employees happy while delivering on their brand promise to be “more than a gas station.”

## Do Your Homework to Get it Right

QuikTrip knows that these moments of delight don’t just come out of thin air. It puts in the work to find out what customers want so it can continuously improve its services. Employees regularly participate in resource groups to discuss problems and potential solutions, secret shoppers evaluate the stores and employees, and the [QT Insights Panel](https://www.quiktrip.com/About/QT-Insights-Panel) offers customers coupons in exchange for their feedback and insights. 

These mechanisms allow QuikTrip to get better incrementally over time rather than wait for one big earth-shattering innovation. As their CEO [says](https://csnews.com/quiktrip-believes-getting-better-every-day), “I don’t necessarily think QT is good at literally inventing things...However, we are, I think, really good at working toward perfecting things that already exist.”

That kind of continuous improvement can have a huge impact on user engagement and your business. If you aren’t sure where to start in your journey to understand and anticipate user needs, [contact us](https://drawbackwards.com/contact) to see how our iterative design thinking approach can help you perfect your user experience.


How to Boost User Engagement:  Anticipate User Needs

__How do you boost user engagement?__

That’s a question we often get from clients. They tell us people aren’t logging in to their app enough or using the fancy new features they built. Users don’t seem to know how to engage with the product or they’re not taking advantage of upgrade options.

Here’s the not-so-secret trick to improving user engagement - __give people what they want when they want it.__

While that feels like a common-sense goal, we've come across plenty of product teams who have lost their way in a dense fog of competing business priorities and urgent feature requests. 

This is Part 1 in our series on the three main principles of user engagement that we use to help clients reach their business and UX goals. Read [Part 2](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/boost-user-engagement-anticipate-user-needs "part 2"). 

For an overview of our general approach to the topic, [watch my video conversation](https://drawbackwards.com/blog/boost-user-engagement) with our lead product strategist, Alicia Fremling.

## Focus on Users’ Top Priority
When the word “priority” came into the English language in the 1400s, it was singular. It referred to the one thing that came first before all others. It wasn’t until 500 years later (the last half of the 1900s, to be exact) that we started talking about “priorities” as a plural concept. Now, everything feels like a priority, which often means that nothing is a priority.

Most users have a maximum of about three key tasks that they consistently want any single product or service to help them accomplish. The problem is, most products and services try to do way more than that. That’s because the product team either hasn’t identified, or they’ve lost sight of, the things that are most important to their users. They've expanded too far beyond the core job that users “hired” the product to do in the first place.

The longer a product is around, the more likely it is to become a hodgepodge of feature requests from all parts of the business. Over time, these added features can water down the core purpose of the product or turn it into a copy of whatever the competition is doing. That can distract from the original goal and prevent you from seeing opportunities for innovation.

Take, for example, the story about how one man [changed the Olympic high jump forever](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZsH46Ek2ao). Dick Fosbury, a 21-year-old civil engineering student from Oregon, won a gold medal at the 1968 Mexico City games by thinking outside the box. 

Dick was initially trained in the traditional techniques of the time, in which jumpers would go over the bar with a scissor kick, straddle, or sideways roll so they could land on their feet and avoid injury in the sand or sawdust landing pits. But Dick wasn’t very good at these techniques. 

So he decided to put his engineering skills to work and focus on what his body naturally wanted to do as he approached the bar. He learned that by jumping backward and arching his back, he could mechanically get over the bar more efficiently and clear greater heights. 

The new technique looked weird and people dismissed it as a strange curiosity. But when Dick walked away with the gold medal after setting an Olympic record, the “Fosbury Flop” became all the rage and it’s still the dominant high jump technique to this day. Talk about user engagement!

## Find a Fresh Perspective and Innovate
Dick found success by focusing on the core job to be done, blocking out popular opinion, and finding a new and better way. But his approach also relied on one more key factor - changes in the environment. As foam pits and landing mats were introduced, it became practical to experiment with new approaches that made it possible for jumpers to land on their back without injury.  

When you look at your product through a [Jobs-to-Be-Done](https://jobs-to-be-done.com/) lens, you lock in on the core needs of your users that will never go away. That gives you permission to look past status quo techniques or fleeting fads to respond to your current environment and deliver extraordinary results. People will want to use your product or service for one simple reason - it works better than the rest.

Need help figuring out your user’s core needs and jobs to be done? We have proven methods and techniques that will help you discover them. [Start a conversation](https://drawbackwards.com/contact) and see how we can help.


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How Do You Boost User Engagement?