Start your Day: Understand Product Use

Start Your Day is about exploring different contexts in which your customers use your product. In the game, you vary the time context. As you do this, pay attention to how other contexts change. For example, you might find that your customer uses your email/scheduling program at the beginning of the day from their home office and at the end of the day from their work office. These locations are quite different, and understanding how they differ provides you with substantial insight into the problems your customer is trying to solve. This understanding, in turn, leads to innovations.

Ask your customer to describe the daily, weekly, monthly , and yearly events that are related to their use of your product on pre-printed, postersized calendars or a simple timeline on poster paper. Ask them to describe events in time frames appropriate for your project. Special event that are unique to an industry or sector (like a conference), or days in which everything goes horribly wrong and they’re looking for help. While they’re doing this, be alert for how your product helps – or hinders – their day.