Unlocking User Satisfaction | UX Design and the Kano Model

Kano model is one of the many UX design prioritization methods where we group items into four categories according to user satisfaction and functionality, and then plot them on a 2D graph. Kano model gets its name from Noriaki Kano, a professor of quality management at Tokyo University who was the one who developed this model in the 1980s.

Kano model takes user satisfaction to another level by talking about designs that exceed customer expectations. In this article, we will discuss the Kano model and how you can use the Kano model in your UX design process in order to create professional designs.

UX Design

User experience refers to the overall experience of a customer or a user using a product, platform, or service. Especially in terms of how simplistic and pleasing it is to use. UX design or User Experience design is the process of creating the experiences or the interactions that a user has with a product. The basic principle of UX design is to keep the needs of the user prior and improve the interaction of the user and the product keeping this in mind.

Kano Model

Kano model is one of the many UX design prioritization methods where we group items into four categories according to user satisfaction and functionality, and then plots them on a 2-dimentional graph.

Based on these scores, items fall in to four categories:

1. Attractive: The attractive category are items that brings a considerable increase in user delight or that increase the user excitement.
2. Performance: The performance category contains items that are essential for the better performance of the design or the product overall
3. Indifferent: The indifferent category contains items that users feel neutral towards.
4. Must be: must be category includes basic items that are expected by users.

Kano Model

There are five UX Design Prioritization Methods:

1. Impact First Effort Matrix
2. Rice method (Reach, Impact, Confidence, effort)
3. Feasibility, Desirability, and Viability Scorecard
4. Moscow Method (Must, Should, Could, Won’t have)
5. Kano model

In the Kano model, we ask the questions – what do we need? what will make our product excellent? and what will excite our customers? These three questions are key to unlocking user satisfaction. Let’s discuss how can we use Kano Model for UX design for user satisfaction in a step by step manner.

How to use Kano Model for UX design for user satisfaction

In this section we will discuss how we can use Kano Model in order to unlock user satisfaction in UX design. Here are a few points on how to use Kano Model.

• Identify: The first step of the Kano model is to identify all of the potential features that our product could have.
• Weigh: The second step is for each feature to weigh the potential to satisfy or to delight our customers against the implementation cost. this is done because in Kano model we not only design for great user experience but also keep in mind the resource we have.
• Categorize: The third step is to decide which of five categories each feature fits in. three of those categories are desirable and two are not desirable (for better understanding, kindly look at the Kano model diagram in previous section.
• Consult: The fourth step is to consult our users and customers about the features and establish the extent in which we are correct in assigning which category they fall into. It is the fourth step that forms the basis of our decision making during the project. Now based on the category the items fall into, we will decide what to do with them.
• Adding the Threshold attributes: The first category is threshold attributes, these are the basic features that our customers and users expect from any professionally designed product/software. Users take these items for granted so they must be added to the design.
• Decision making for Performance attributes: The second category is performance attributes also known as satisfiers. For performance attributes the customer or user satisfaction is in proportion to the scale of the feature or the level of implementation.
• Decision making for Excitement attributes: The third category is excitement attributes also known as delighters. These are the attributes where there is no proportionality at all. for a given investment we get a disproportionate increase in customer delight. Investing a small amount in delighters produces a huge dividend in customer and user satisfaction and excitement. Having these in the design are really recommended.
• Eliminating: There are also two categories of features that we need to eliminate from our design.
  • Indifferent attributes or indifferent features: The customers and users simply don’t care about them. if you give these features to the user, they won’t use them and whatever money/resource you put into these features will be wasted.
  • Dissatisfaction attributes or Dissatisfaction features: These are attributes of the product that your customers simply do not want. By including them, not only you waste your resources, you also diminish the value of the product in the eyes of the customer.

Conclusion

Kano model is a great UX Design prioritization method that can help you create professional designs with an industry level user experience and that too by utilizing minimum resources possible. In the Kano model, we ask the questions – what do we need? what will make our product excellent? and what will excite our customers? These three questions are key to unlocking user satisfaction. While using the Kano model, make sure to keep in mind the points we discussed in this article in order to design products in a better user experience.