Understanding user adoption is a critical part of making a successful product

Our Sales team lead turned into a User research advocate when I sent him a key finding about user adoption: Users tended to search for products like ours at three specific times of the year.

It was just some feedback I heard during user testing, but it was a critical piece of their Sales strategy that they were grateful I had passed on. The reason for this is that User Adoption of a product is often a tricky subject to tackle, and it involves more than a good UX: tons of products with great UX have been abandoned in the marketplace.

When designing onboarding tutorials or welcome screens, asking a few questions about user motivations and Adoption during testing can often lead to critical insights the rest of your team needs.

To understand why, let’s begin with the first step people take to find a new product: the ‘Google search.’

User Adoption usually starts with a Google search.

I can’t speak for all users, but in the B2B world, the user journey around Adoption usually begins with a Google search.

43.2% of users, 16–64, search the internet to research products or brands, which often involves buying products for an organization.

Essentially, the user is in the market for a new product or is looking for a product that solves their issue for a couple of reasons:

• Time-sensitivity: A product contract is expiring, or the problem is critical and needs to be quickly resolved
• Seasonality: There is a specific ‘period’ or timeframe where the organization has set aside a budget to buy new software/products
• Frustration: While less likely in B2B products, many Google searches result from the emotion of frustration. The problem is so bad in these cases that someone turns to the internet for solutions. (i.e., “How do I turn off…