Summary of episode transcript:
Olivier: Welcome to our second episode of the userexperience.org podcast. Today, we have Martijn Schouten with us, who I connected with through a group chat for the upcoming Tech conference in Amsterdam. Martijn, could you give us a brief introduction about yourself?
Martijn: Sure! I work for Lifely, an agency in Amsterdam, leading the AI Department. I also run Whisky Why, a platform for Whisky enthusiasts where you can take a taste quiz, and we recommend Whiskys based on your answers.
Olivier: You have a varied background, including studying artificial intelligence. Would you describe your career path as straightforward or more like a maze?
Martijn: It was definitely not straightforward. I started with an interest in web development during high school, worked for an agency, then became a business analyst, and eventually dived into AI, which led me to where I am today. A lot of my skills were self-taught.
Olivier: Regarding self-teaching, what tips do you have for those considering teaching themselves?
Martijn: I actually studied information science at the University of Amsterdam, which was a broad degree, so you don’t really learn a lot of very applicable skills, unfortunately, but it also made me realise pretty early on that I learn best when I need to use the knowledge for a project. So, my advice would be to pick a project, start working on it, and learn what you need along the way.
Olivier: Let’s talk about Whisky Why. How did you come up with the idea?
Martijn: The idea came when my co-founder was discussing the challenge of getting good Whisky recommendations without expert knowledge. When we would go to the whisky store, the store assistant helping us was often young and inexperienced and if you asked for a recommendation, they would often just point to the most expensive bottle. We wanted to offer a smarter way to recommend Whiskys, which led to the creation of Whisky Why.
Olivier: How did you ensure that what you built was what people actually wanted?
Martijn: At first, we over engineered and built several features that turned out not to provide as much value as we expected. For example, we built tasting clubs, and being able to make lists of different bottles and sharing that. It turned out the main driver was the whisky quiz and the recommendation that followed it. My main takeaway is find the customer and their needs first, and then start building instead of the other way around.
Olivier: Regarding the platform’s value proposition, it seems a relatively quick recommendation is what users find most valuable. Can you elaborate on how you gathered user feedback?
Martijn: We relied heavily on data collection, tracking user interactions on our website to understand their behaviours and preferences. We can see at what point users tend to leave the website.
Olivier: How does using AI for the Whisky recommendation quiz affect user interaction?
Martijn: AI was a big selling point initially since this was before the recent AI hype cycle, but now, it’s more about the value we provide. The focus is on helping users explore new Whisky’s and tastes.
Olivier: Can you tell us about the dashboard feature on Whisky Why?
Martijn: The dashboard was designed to attract experienced Whisky drinkers by offering a more visually appealing way to track their Whisky preferences and discoveries.
Olivier: How did you decide what features to include on the dashboard?
Martijn: We conducted competitive analysis to identify the minimum requirements for Whisky drinkers and what we could do better. For example, the other platforms tend to have dashboards that look like Excel spreadsheets, which is quite overwhelming and intimidating. We focused on providing a user friendly and intuitive dashboard:
Olivier: As we wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share about Whisky Why or any insights from building it?
Martijn: If starting again, I’d focus more on using existing tools and templates for the platform, reserving custom development for the core AI component. It’s crucial to build efficiently and prioritize features that directly add value to the user.
Olivier: Thanks for sharing your product and insights. See you at the Next Web Conference!
Martijn: Looking forward to it. See you then!
This transcript was edited with ❤️ using ChatGPT 4.0.
Leave a Reply