Dogfooding: How Putting Yourself in the User’s Shoes Changes the Way You See Your Product

Dogfooding: How Putting Yourself in the User’s Shoes Changes the Way You See Your Product

In the world of product development, there is a concept known as "dogfooding". This term refers to the practice of using your own product as a way to gain a better understanding of its strengths and weaknesses. By putting yourself in the user's shoes, you can uncover blind spots and gain valuable insights into how to improve your product. Dogfooding is not just about theoretical or roadmap-based understanding; it is about experiencing your product in a real, practical, everyday sense.

One of the common pitfalls that product developers often fall into is losing sight of what it's like to be a new user. When we become deeply immersed in our own experiences with a product, we can easily overlook issues that may be obvious to an outsider. This is where dogfooding becomes crucial. It forces us to step back and see our product through the eyes of someone who is encountering it for the first time.

To truly embrace the practice of dogfooding, it is important to periodically sign up for your own service using a brand new account. This allows you to stay up-to-date on the user experience and serves as a reminder that there is always more to learn and improve. By doing this, you can identify the pitfalls and challenges that users may run into, as well as gauge the overall ease or difficulty of using your product. It is through this process that you can gain customer empathy.

Customer empathy is about putting yourself in the shoes of another person and experiencing your product from their perspective. It requires looking outside of yourself and seeing through the eyes of your users, without the ability to rely on debugging tools or direct access to engineers. This is particularly important to consider when building products for a global audience. We must remember that not everyone has the same knowledge, understanding, or access to technology that we do. By being mindful of this, we can avoid leaving certain users out of the equation.

It is easy to assume that everyone in the world is just like us, but the reality is quite different. Our perspectives are often shaped by our own limited experiences. This is where dogfooding can truly be transformative. It allows us to see how our products impact individuals who are different from us. It opens our eyes to the diverse range of people who use our products and helps us understand their unique needs and challenges.

In a talk given by Evan Williams at the XOXO Festival in 2013, he emphasized the importance of identifying human desires that remain constant over time. He highlighted that human desires such as love, money, status, a sense of belonging, influence, answers, and the desire to create have stayed consistent throughout generations. Williams also discussed the role of convenience in technology. He noted that the convenience of the internet was achieved through speed and cognitive ease, as well as the removal of unnecessary steps.

Williams went on to stress that convenience can be detrimental if it leads us to miss the point. He emphasized the importance of using technology to provide nourishment and free people up to do better and more meaningful things. This sentiment aligns perfectly with the concept of dogfooding. By putting ourselves in the shoes of our users, we can ensure that our products truly serve their needs and contribute to their overall well-being.

In conclusion, dogfooding is a powerful practice that can completely transform the way we see our own products. It allows us to uncover blind spots, gain valuable insights, and ultimately build better, more user-focused products. To embrace dogfooding, it is important to periodically sign up for your own service and experience it as a new user would. Additionally, it is crucial to develop customer empathy and consider the needs of a diverse global audience. By incorporating these practices into our product development process, we can ensure that our products are truly impactful and serve the desires and needs of our users.