Love the adrenaline of starting in a new product space. I have noticed that in my whole experience as a working designer, I gravitate towards emerging technologies. Emerging technologies that solve real problems helping real people. Growing up in Mexico and having the opportunity to study in the United States, I have always felt grateful. My way to show appreciation is always by giving back to the community.

When I saw that I could do innovative work and at the same time help people with real tedious issues, that is when I started gravitating to the new spaces. I have worked on e-learning before it was a thing, fintech, mixed reality, AI, and now process mining (an RPA).

When you work on emerging technology you have the challenges of: adoption, engagement, and retention.

For this case, I will concentrate on the framework we have been using to tackle the priority challenge: Adoption. Without adoption we won’t get engagement and without engagement we won’t get retention.

Adoption comes from different angles:

1. Show the business value to your stakeholders and customer
2. Get your product visibility
3. Onboard and educate the users

Show the value to your stakeholders & customers

I believe that process mining is going to be a technology that all businesses use in 5–10 years. It gives you a visualization of any type of small to big process and tells you where you have gaps or where the process takes the longest. You can use this for operations, customer journeys, supply chain processes, finances process, retail, and more.

Define the key value of your product:

Who is it for?

What is it for the user? Why should they use it? How does it benefit them? Why would they invest in ramp up? What is it for their business?

What is your differentiator vs competitors?

Think of differentiators that can help you. This will bring you your key value.

How are you different? How are solving pain points differently?

Know the market

Research the market of this technology. We gathered our research for robotic process automations and saw how this will grow exponentially in the next 5 years. It is one of the biggest bets. If we can be one of the pioneers, we will be known as the experts in no time.

Create alignment

I created a workshop session where the team got together. This was the workshop:

• Step 1: Each person will write their views and ideas on a FigmaJam post-it explaining why our process mining and task mining business, service, or product is unique.
• Step 2: Members then present each idea and talk about it to the group
• Step 3: We will theme the common ideas into groups.

This helped so much since it was a time to create team bonding, for everyone put on the customers hat, and lastly hearing everyones perspectives. This is how true innovation blossoms.

The outcome was something like this:

We created buckets for customer’s gains, pains, and needs.

Product visibility

Get product visibility by participating in open forums of the technology, conferences, leveraging customer networks, levariging sister products, and offering piloting the product.

For us, we have our product inside another product. This brings us great visibility by leveraging existing customers of our sister product, Power Automate.

We also have customer champions we can talk to, and well known community forums.

Onboarding and educating the user

You need to provide the right tools to your users to show value, educate them and explain how it works.

Educate your user

It is hard to get users to start using the product especially when there is data integrations needed. This is where you need to educate the user. Explain what the new technology.

What is the new technology?

Why is it needed? What are their gains? What pains is it removing? What needs does it solve for?

Onboard the user

Onboarding is extremely important. You usually have 5 seconds to wow the user to make them interested in your product and create that engagement you want. It is easier to bring new users and get them engaged than trying to bring users who have seen the product and didn’t get the product value. So, you only get that one change to get that adoption.

It’s all about that first impression

Make sure you have clear actions for the user so they can time a glance on what they will be getting into. Onboarding process should get users started, not get them overwhelmed. Help them achieve their goals by being transparent, giving them the benefits of the product, and guiding them.

Give them a way for them to browse by themselves, but at the same time give them a hand whenever they are ready. That is why we have the start by yourself or guide me:

Tell them what and where should they use it for:

Explain how to interact with the product. “Show me how to use it”

Conclusion

Emerging technologies is exciting! You know it can change the future for a brighter one. However, it does come with challenges. Be sure to believe in your product and continue to push forward. This is all a team effort with cross-disciplines. Provide customer centric alignment and together you will deliver a great product.

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