"Simplicity/Complexity": User expectations in specialist information products

In this second meet-up, I'm going to start the ball rolling on the idea that we should share experiences and ideas across our profession, so as to build broader recognition of the specialist skills and analysis we bring to the table as product managers. I'm hoping that someone else will step up to volunteer to do for some other kind of product management challenge in the next meet-up, and that maybe we can be hosted somewhere else too.

There will be a short and pithy 20-25 minute presentation/talk on the challenges faced in delivering a great user experience in online professional/specialist information products, followed by 1 hour+ of free flowing discussion in the group.

This topic may seem somewhat narrow in focus at first glance, but there are many Norwegian companies and organisations that do exactly this.

• Rystad Energy (specialised energy data for oil companies)

• Fronter (for specialised educational content for teachers and students)

• Infront (information for professional financial market participants)

• Skattetaten (tax information for accountants, companies, consumers)

• Visma (for specialised payroll/HR information)

In essence, it's a relevant discussion for any organisation that is attempting to build "simple but powerful" online tools to navigate and utilise complex high value content and that is targeted at subject-matter experts, pretty much across any sector, industry or organisation.

While the presentation will obviously be based on the presenter's experiences and thinking, it will NOT be a sales pitch for the products or the company the presenter works on/with. The speaker is talking as a professional product manager, not as a representative of their employer. You can expect to hear about successful approaches, but also common ongoing complaints and unsolved problems, albeit abstracted away from the specifics to come closer to a set of generalised themes for product management.

And the audience should ask questions and propose better ways of approaching these problems, based on their own experience and ideas.

Hopefully we can use this set-up as a starting point for the standard approach for such talks in future, albeit one that can and should evolve.

We will adjourn to Oslo Mekaniske afterwards for a drink or two, for those who wish to carry on.

I look forward to seeing you!

Vincent