Kano Analysis
A Kano Analysis is a way of evaluating a product for user satisfaction based on its feature set. A business can realize the biggest gains from its product investment by focusing on the development of user requirements that will differentiate it from competitors. Rather than emphasizing user needs and goals, improving the overall quality of a product, a Kano Analysis focuses on user satisfaction and dissatisfaction as the main success metric.
In a Kano Analysis, features are described with five levels of user satisfaction:
- Expected — Features that are the bare minimum of what users require.
- Desired — Features that will make the product competitive.
- Exciting — Features that delight users and make the product a market leader.
- Indifferent — Features that do not affect users’ opinions of the product.
- Reverse — “Anti-features” which turn users away from the product.
A market-leading product will lose its ability to excite over time. Competitors will copy it, and more exciting requirements will come. Innovation, therefore, is a valuable factor in user experience. The Kano Analysis suggests that businesses and designers should value requirements that differentiate a product over those that mimic competitor functionality.
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Created by: Joe Steinkamp | Last updated by: Joe Steinkamp