Forget the “Mom Test” – Can you Explain it to the 80 Year Old Grandmother?… – (Keep it Simple in a World of Complexity)

This morning I spoke for 50 minutes on “Current Events” to residents of an upscale retirement community.  I took my iPad, and showed them a photo I took on vacation.  (I walked around the room, letting each person take a look).  Then I explained Photo Stream, and the “cloud” (in this case, iCloud).  These are smart people.  They have the means to live in these nice places.  But they are “behind the curve” in many ways.  Many of these residents have never sat in front of a computer.  Never.

Here’s the iGran: 103-year-old Lillian becomes world’s oldest Facebooker (and updates from her iPad) – Click on image to read about her

Let me say that again – many have never sat in front of a computer.  They do not own one, and, to be honest, they are a little scared of computers.  iPad, even iPhone, and the “Cloud,” and Twitter, and even Facebook – these words are all pretty much jibberish to them.

(Yes, there are a few of them who are plugged in and connected.  But not many.  The few that are truly are the exception – the rare exception).

I speak to such groups multiple times a month.  I love it. One reason that I love it is that it forces me to keep things simple.  I have to explain many items in the news – especially items related to technological advance — with comparisons and contrasts to what they know.  It is the greatest communication/presentation skills lab that I could ever ask for.

(Just so you will know, my arrangement with all of these places is that when I need to speak in a “business engagement,” the business engagement takes precedence.  But, frequently, my “Current Events” sessions are scheduled in the middle of the morning, or the middle of the afternoon — so I can still speak to these folks, and to my business and corporate clients).

So…  I thought about this regular audience for my presentations as I read this terrific article from The Atlantic site:  ‘The Mom Test’ — Need to field test your tech product? Look no further than your mom by Megan Garber.  Here’s an excerpt:

At a panel about design at the Aspen Ideas Festival this week, John Doerr asked Flipboard co-founder Mike McCue what advice he’d give to budding entrepreneurs. McCue’s reply? Give products the “Mom Test.” 

McCue tells his employees, he said, to think constantly about their mothers’ reactions — real or imagined — to the things they’re building. Think, he said, about how the average person — the person who could benefit from technology, but who is not necessarily adept with technology — might react to their product. “You’re sitting down at Thanksgiving,” McCue said, “and your mom asks, ‘So, what are you doing? What are you building?'”

“And if you start to give an answer, and her eyes are glazing over, and she doesn’t really understand what you’re saying, you know you’re off to a bad start.”

McCue elaborated. The Mom Test, he said, has three core criteria:

1. understanding

2. desire 

3. ability

Basically, your user needs to get what your product is about. She needs to want to use it. And she needs to be able to use it. So “when you describe what you’re doing,” McCue said, “she needs to say, ‘Oh, that’s really cool. I’d like to use it.'”

Understanding, desire, and ability.  And, I would argue that the game is won or lost at the beginning.  Where there is understanding, there is hope.  Where there is no understanding, there is no chance for “early adopting,” or “anytime adopting” at all.

But, this understanding is not “explain how this works” understanding.  I don’t know how a refrigerator works, or how an iPhone works.  But I do understand what I can do with these – what their value is to me.  “My refrigerator keeps my Dr Pepper cold and my Blue Bell frozen.  My iPhone lets me make a phone call, take a picture, send it to someone else very easily, and look up movie times and TV shows and read about the USS Lexington on Wikipedia.”

I understand what I can do with these products.  Thus, I desire to use them.  And, then, I can easily use them.  I open the door, and take out the Dr Pepper.  I tap the icon (ok – at one point, I had to learn the meaning of this use of the word “icon”), tap in USS Lexington, and click on the Wikipedia entry.

It’s understandable; I want it; I can use it easily.
This is the true Mom (make that the true Grandmom) Test.

Does your service or product pass the Mom/Grandmom test?