Using the Kano Model Prioritization Framework in Product Development
Using the Kano Model Prioritization Framework in Product Development
Luke Holohan
B2B Product
Nov 20, 2024
11
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TL,DR: The Kano Model helps product teams plan out and develop new features based on how they impact customer satisfaction. The strategy, developed in the 1980s, is typically divided into five categories: basic expectations, performance features, attractive quality or excitement features, as well as indifferent and reverse features. Basic features are what customers expect and they prevent dissatisfaction. Meanwhile, performance attributes directly improve satisfaction. Excitement features delight users without causing dissatisfaction if they’re missing. Indifferent features are those that have little to no impact on customer satisfaction whether included or not. Reverse features, on the other hand, may cause dissatisfaction when present, as they can add unnecessary complexity or conflict with user expectations. As a project management framework, the Kano model helps teams build a strategic product roadmap that prioritizes high-impact additions. By mapping customer feedback on these feature categories, the Kano model works to outline which new features boost satisfaction, ensuring products align with what people truly want.
What is the Kano Model?
The strategy goes beyond basic metrics to uncover deeper insights into feature development and customer needs. It was invented by Tokyo University of Science Professor Noriaki Kano in the 1980s and is considered an excellent model for understanding customer preferences and steering product team projects.
To implement the Kano Model, companies often conduct a Kano survey to understand customer feedback to features of a product or service. This survey should include both functional (positive) and dysfunctional (negative) questions about each feature, helping identify which category each feature belongs to. For example, "How would you feel if the laptop had a touchscreen?" would be a functional question. A corresponding dysfunctional question could be: "How would you feel if the laptop did not have a touchscreen?"
By analyzing the answers of respondents, companies can prioritize features that will maximize customer satisfaction and align their products with their target market. So let’s dive deeper and look further at: the Kano model in full, it’s real-world impact, which companies use it, and its implementation. Learn how to delight your customers and build the perfect product roadmap.
How the Kano Model categorizes product features
The Kano model defines 5 product characteristics as impacting customer satisfaction:
Must-Be (Basic) Features: These are the minimum what the customer will need. Their absence may frustrate us beyond belief, but they don’t excite us. Think car brakes or web search. You’re going to want them as a basic but they won't blow your mind.
Performance (One-Dimensional) Functionalities: These are explicitly requested by the users. In this category product performance attributes are related to ability and efficiency. So if produce performance increases, customer happiness likely will too. Higher processing speed or additional memory on laptop is one example.
Excitement (Attractive) Features: They are surprise features or delighters that make your customers smile. They don’t leave customers unhappy but when they are on the scene, they increase happiness. Gorgeous UIs or innovative and surprising technologies like touchscreens come into this category.
Indifferent Features: As the name suggests, these don't really have a great impact on customer satisfaction. For example, a short animation during the login process of a laptop may go unnoticed by most users.
Reverse Features: When they exist, these features leave some customers dissatisfied. It can be caused by overly complex interfaces or advanced functionalities that, while innovative or “cool” to some, add unnecessary complexity for others.
Visualizing emotional responses for strategic prioritization
With each feature in a product, Kano creates a 2D visualization:
Vertical Axis (Y-axis): Customer Satisfaction
This axis represents customer satisfaction, ranging from high satisfaction at the top to high dissatisfaction at the bottom.
Features that satisfy customers appear higher, while those that disappoint show lower on the axis.
Horizontal Axis (X-axis): Feature Implementation or Achievement
This axis ranges from absent or poorly implemented on the left to fully achieved or well implemented on the right.
It shows the extent to which a feature is developed or delivered to customers.
Mapping feature priorities: understanding the Kano curves
When plotting responses to the functional and dysfunctional states of features, the curves reveal insights that help in prioritizing development. Here’s a breakdown of the characteristic curve shapes:
Must-Be (Basic Features):
These plot as a horizontal line near the bottom of the graph.
Their absence causes extreme dissatisfaction, but their presence only prevents dissatisfaction rather than increasing satisfaction.
Performance (Satisfier Features):
These follow a diagonal line sloping upward, indicating that as feature quality improves, customer satisfaction increases in a linear fashion.
The more effectively these features are implemented, the more they satisfy customers.
Excitement (Attractive Features):
This curve is often a steep slope on the right side, where the feature's presence can delight customers, but its absence doesn’t lead to dissatisfaction.
These features create excitement when present, often providing a competitive edge.
Indifferent Features:
This is a flat line across the middle of the graph.
These features do not significantly impact satisfaction, whether they are included or not, and therefore require minimal attention in development.
Reverse Features:
These plot as a diagonal line sloping downward, showing that as the feature’s presence increases, satisfaction actually decreases.
Such features should be avoided if they negatively impact the overall experience.
This type of graph or ranking scheme can convert customer insights into a practical product roadmap. Those tasked with product or service development should focus on performance attributes and product features that align the most with customer needs. Next, think about attractive features and make sure to avoid any reverse additions.
Kano Model facts and usage
The Kano Model, developed from groundbreaking empirical research in the 1980s, has offered a powerful tool for developers to gain insights into what a customer thinks about different product features.
As mentioned, by categorizing features, the Kano Model identifies attributes that impact customer satisfaction, helping developers prioritize those that can deliver the most value. The model should incorporate continuous analysis for tracking satisfaction over time and categories such as basic, performance, and excitement features. Each category is designed to reveal how specific attributes contribute to increased customer satisfaction.
Here are some more fast facts about the creation of the Kano Model:
Emotional Response: Dr. Noriaki Kano conducted a study of the consumer response to product features with 900 people. He identified five emotional patterns of fulfilment.
Market Expansion: The Kano Model is being used across different industries like IT, marketing, manufacturing, tech, and so on.
Questionnaire Design: You require specific functional and dysfunctional questions for a precise Kano analysis.
Feature Migration: Features may shift categories over time. For example, excitement features could become basic features as customers come to expect them as standard.
The Kano Model is widely used by companies aiming to prioritize product features based on their impact on customer satisfaction. Some examples of companies and products designed using the Kano and mapping consumer responses include:
E-wallets: OVO and ShopeePay research showed that the majority of their feature fell into the "Must-Be" and "One-Dimensional" categories, indicating they were essential or had a direct impact on customer satisfaction. In contrast, the "Indifferent" category highlighted unmet customer needs, demonstrating how the Kano Model can be applied to identify and prioritize features in digital payment systems effectively.
Mobile Devices: Apple has purportedly used the Kano Model to distinguish between basic features, such as product reliability, and excitement features that enhance user satisfaction, like the addition of a touch screen in early iPhones. Apple’s strategic emphasis on performance and excitement features has allowed it to stay ahead in innovation and customer loyalty by focusing on unique attributes that elevate customer delight, such as seamless integration within its ecosystem of products and services like iTunes and App Store.
Motor Vehicles: Toyota reportedly uses the Kano Model to align its automotive features with customer expectations, focusing on Must-Have safety features, Performance elements like fuel efficiency, and exciting additions like advanced infotainment systems. This helps Toyota meet customer demands for reliability while incorporating innovations that make its cars stand out.
Why the Kano Model should be in a product manager's toolkit
The use of this strategic framework created by Dr Noriaki Kano in product design yields these results:
Find Out What Customers Really Want: The Kano model helps identify unmet needs and wants, which will directly drive customer loyalty and satisfaction. Not everything your product teams create has to be about functionality.
Get a Strategic Approach To Focus: Through map visualization and segmentation, you can make a strategic approach to prioritizing your target market's basic need and the right features.
Create Customer Delight: Product managers and developers can increase customer satisfaction with unexpected features, distinguish brands and develop emotions.
Changes Over Product Life Cycle: The model will also work for new product launches, enhancements, and redesigns by displaying changes in needs and wants.
Increase ROI with High-Impact Features: With limited resources, prioritize features that offer the highest satisfaction gains and get an efficient return on investment.
Unify Stakeholders Around a Customer-Centric Vision: The model brings stakeholders together around the customer perspective and expectations.
How the Kano Model affects customer satisfaction levels
Here's a simple table to help visualize how different features apply to customer satisfaction. In the Kano model, Must-Be features, like a search bar on a website, or brakes on a car, are essential but don’t increase satisfaction when present.
Performance features, such as laptop processor speed or battery life on a phone are one dimensional attributes and directly enhance satisfaction as they improve. Excitement features in the Kano model, like a beautiful UI or touchscreens, increase customer delight unexpectedly. Indifferent features, such as advanced text formatting options, don’t generally impact satisfaction. Lastly, Reverse features, like overly complex interfaces, can decrease satisfaction for some customers.
Step-by-step guide to implementing Kano analysis
Kano analysis is not difficult if you have some experience in planning and running a survey. This approach helps teams understand potential customer reactions to different features, identifying which attributes provide satisfaction and which may not resonate as strongly. As customer expectations change over time, the Kano Model supports quality management by adapting to these evolving needs, making sure that products stay relevant and valuable to users. By focusing on features that maximize satisfaction, the Kano Model helps create more satisfied customers, which can lead to higher loyalty and positive brand perception.
Feature Identification
View all possible features of the product or service.
Survey Development
Develop a survey that includes ‘good’ and ‘bad’ questions, otherwise know as functional and dysfunctional, about each feature. Randomize order.
Data Collection
Send questionnaires to sample customers. The more samples of how customers react, the better.
Data Analysis
Create a table of responses. Follow patterns and clues.
Prioritization
With new insights into feature importance you can prioritize, build a roadmap, make features that seek to maximize customer happiness.
Ongoing Monitoring
Re-do this analysis frequently to spot changing customer demands for iterative product development.
Making your Kano model work with tech
The Kano Model can complement tools like Productlane by offering a structured approach to understanding the features that resonate most with users. By categorizing requests according to customer satisfaction, the Kano Model helps identify where innovation and differentiation potential truly lie.
Then, using Productlane, you can empower product teams to respond not only to direct feedback but also to the deeper, often emotional preferences that drive customer loyalty. If you are interested in improving your product management capabilities, then Productlane’s support tools could be just the tech you need.
The shared email inbox centralizes customer conversations, the Slack inbox integration streamlines feedback and follow-ups, and the call recorder ensures no valuable insights from customer calls are missed, making it easy to act on feedback collaboratively. To find out more, check out schedule a Productlane demo.
FAQs on the Kano Model
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