Are you weaving human beings' 3 basic behavioral cravings (Competence, Autonomy, Connectedness) into the very fabric of your product design, UX, marketing, support, the entire launch cycle? If no, you should.

Think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs (see Maslow's hierarchy of needs) and the basic needs he espouses: his pyramidal hierarchy of needs meets our physical existential requirements. But there is also the behavioral cravings that humans have and that also has a hierarchy of needs.

For a product, there is also the need to meet a customer's psychometric or behavioral needs. And, again, there are basic behavioral needs that are at the bottom of the pyramid.

As a product manager, ask yourself, if your product appeals to the 3 basic behavioral needs that each of us exhibit in our lives and how the product addresses those needs. Psychologists have identified 3 basic needs that most of us want to have a grip on: Competence, Autonomy, and Connectedness. Are you doing A/B testing where you are taking into account a customer's behavioral needs? Are you incorporating these basic cravings of ours into the UX design?

Behavioral need 1: Competence - Human beings have an inherent tendency to want to be successful, effective in our tasks (in fact, "task success" is a one of the five elements of Google's HEART product metrics model, the other being Happiness, Engagement, Acquisition, Retention), growing in our capabilities (leveling up as in games we play), and reaching goals or overcoming obstacles.

Behavioral need 2: Autonomy - Human beings want and crave autonomy in their decision making. We want to be responsible for our decisions, our actions, be the author of our lives, have the capacity to endorse our actions, make choices on what, when and where to share, and question around the corners of issues we face.

Behavioral need 3: Connectedness - Human beings crave meaningful connections. It has been well researched that we would rather have a handful of reliable, warm, helpful family and friends circle rather than hundreds of contacts on social media sites that are more of a "call upon need" points in relationship-time space. This is why our family is our first go-to mechanism when we are facing breakdowns. 

Recently in a conversation with a product manager at Zulily, I took "Google Glass" as an example and explained how it did not meet our behavioral needs and could be the reason the V1.0 product failed. For those who don't know Google Glass, here's a wiki link.

While Google Glass is a technologically advanced product with a form factor that lets us easily get into the world of virtual reality, its UX has not included the need for us to be competent, autonomous, and connected. There has been a lot of focus on the hardware's form factor and less on engagement/adoption metrics which are driven by behavioral theory. Price is not the only driver that influences adoption and retention of a product. Our need to behaviorally be one with it is a huge driver for long-term retention of the product and the brand.

Think about why companies go to great lengths to build their brands around social aspects: it is to create a platform for connectedness and demonstrate that the company's brand empowers us in an autonomous way to be very competent in what we do. Tesla's brand is a great example of this - when you buy a Tesla, the UX is designed in a way that it asks the users to get themselves to be motivated to be competent in finding the controls to drive the car (much like in video games where you have to wander around a bit to get a feel for what the controls can do). It helps us be autonomous in deciding which driving mode we want to be in (economy, sports etc.) or even engage the hands-off auto-pilot option. Finally, in a testament to human connectedness as a basic need,  it brings the Tesla owners together as a proud family  - something Harley Davidson does with its fantastic Harley Owners Group (HOG) platform/web portal.

Successful product managers not just incorporate the 3 basic behavioral needs into the product design but weave them into the very fabric, every integral facet of the product strategy, design, development, launch, marketing and support processes. Go build great but behaviorally connecting products for sustained adoption!

If you liked my article, post your thoughts below or leave comments. Thanks for reading. Hope it helps in your product management quest.