Gabriel Burrill

The Kano Model

Gabriel Burrill -

The Kano Model is a product prioritisation framework. It gives us a way to measure which features will increase customer satisfaction compared to the the cost to implement the feature.

The Kano Model is a good one to look at when you have a large roadmap and limited resources to build everything you want to build.

Three types of features to include

Must-Have

These are the features that your user expects in the product (like a turn signal in a car). These are must-have to be competitive and if you don't include them or it doesn't work properly, then your customers will be dissatisfied.

Performance

These features have a linear correlation between customer satisfaction and the cost to build. The more you invest in these features, the more your users will be satisfied.

Attractive

These features will disproportionately satisfy your users the more you spend investing in these features. Having said that, if you ignore these features and  don't include them at all, users wouldn't notice at all. They are not essential but will go a long way in delighting your users.

Two Types of features to avoid

Indifferent: These are features that your users don't care about. No matter how long you spend building them, they will have no impact at all on customer satisfaction.

Dissatisfaction: These are the features that will actively annoy your users.

Natural Decay of Delight

Features that excite users today will usually eventually become performance or just must-have features in the future. This is caused by competition catching up and the evolving nature of technology.

For example, the fluid touch screen of an iPhone or downloading an app that can tell you the name and artist of a song while hearing it play. When these features first came out, they were very impressive but now many of these features are seen as must-have phone features.

Kano Questionnaire

Now we need a reliable way to determine which category each feature sits in.

The first method is by asking your customers two simple questions

  • How do you feel if you have this feature?
  • How do you feel if you don't have this feature?

We then allow them to only answer with one of the following

  • I like it
  • I expect it
  • I am neutral
  • I can tolerate it
  • I dislike it

Evaluating the results

The good thing about asking both how they would feel with and without the feature is we can tell if

  • The customer has not understood the questions or feature we are describing
  • The feature we are proposing is actually the opposite of what they want

We now have what's called the functional version (feature present) and the dysfunctional version (feature absent).

If someone says they dislike having the feature and like not having the feature, they  are not interested in our feature and actually want the opposite. This is known in the evaluation table as Reverse.

If we get conflicting answers, for example they like having it and like not having it, it is known as Questionable. Some of these can be expected, but if a majority of your customers/users have questionable answers then it's likely there is something wrong with what you are asking.

You can map the answers to the question using the below table. For example, if they like it with the feature present and answer don't care with the feature absent, it is considered an attractive feature.

Further reading