What is a feature audit?
A feature audit entails a comprehensive assessment of product/service features to optimize existing consumer-defined value propositions. In this context, conducting a feature-focused end-user evaluation helps to answer two improvement-fostering queries, which are:
- Which specific product/service feature has the most significant number of end-users, i.e., single or multiple product/service features with considerable end-user preference
- What is the feature-specific use frequency for each distinct product/service feature, i.e., how often different end-users utilize the same specific product/service feature( within a defined time duration)
In the above context, a feature-focused audit not only identifies which product/service features are widespread within a target end-user market segment, but this customer-centric product/service evaluation highlights possible causes of user-defined feature-specific preference.
Carrying Out a Feature Audit
Implementing a feature audit entails conducting a feature-focused product/service end-user survey in an existing and established market segment, i.e., a product/service owner’s feature-specific survey targets end users from an existing consumer base. The main reasons for focussing on an established consumer base are:
● End users are already familiar with most, if not all, product/service features
● End-user has had time to develop a feature-specific preference.
Formulating Feature-centric Survey Questions
Once a product/service improvement team has identified viable candidates for the feature-specific survey, the next step is formulating the questions each end user will answer. The two main feature-centric survey formulation goals are :
● To access end-user familiarity with specific product/service features
● To determine feature-specific use frequency for individual end-users
Note that feature-centered surveys are typically multichoice questionnaires that allow end-users to pick the most relevant/applicable answer.
For example, an ideal feature-familiarity and feature-specific questions and their corresponding multichoice answers in a survey targeting photo editing app users are:
- How many times a week do you use the app to edit your photos?
Corresponding multichoice answers are:
● Daily(at least once a day )
● Frequently(at least two times a week)
● Rarely(at least once a week)
- How often do you save edited photos on the app’s cloud storage platform?
Corresponding multichoice answers are:
● Often(every time I use the app)
● Rarely(once in a while, e.g., for social media posts)
● Never(I never store edited photos online)
After the feature-focused consumer survey, a product improvement task force plots the acquired findings onto a graph. The graph’s horizontal axis represents end-user feature familiarity, with the vertical axis depicting feature-specific use.
Feature Audit Significance in Product/Service Improvement
A product/service audit enables a product/service development team to realize two improvement-centered outcomes. First and foremost, the team accurately determines which product/service features avail target end-users with the most significant value proposition, i.e., product/service features with the real end-user preference.
Second, this feature-focused evaluation ensures a product/service improvement team attains a clear grasp of the comparative preference-fostering relevance amongst multiple distinct product/service features, i.e., the possible existence of underlying preference-centric relationships between two or more products/service features.
Empowered with comprehensive feature-specific user-defined knowledge, a product/service team is a product/service development team with feature-centered improvement strategies that effectively target observed user-defined preferences for specific product/service features.
