The Opportunity for Opportunity

There is opportunity to provide value, by focusing on the things that increases people's access to opportunities.

In the industry it seems that people do not differentiate between social, entertainment and utility, when dishing out design or UX/UI advice. Which to me is curious as they are fundamentally different.

Take a bank for example. A bank is a financial utility at its core, even though it can position (which only changes the touch point, not the core business) one of its apps in social (a discussion for another day). UX should not try an increase engagement with a bank, if it doesn't further the value of the function it provides. Otherwise it will be eating into the other functional requirements (e.g. responsibilities for work, family, social, etc.) people have in order to be in a position to afford said services from a bank.

For people creating utility, what are important is not just "getting things done" or "being efficient", but being able to be better of using your product. The opportunity to "level-up" is universally seen and experienced as of something of value.

In order to provide this value, a business needs to know what "levelling up" or success looks like for their customers (and why the general applied Agile approach is problematic). If you don't know what success is, how can you support it?

If you know what success looks like and you've explore the various goals, features, problems, tools, needs and mental models that people experience towards this success, you will be in a better position to build opportunity for people and unlock value.