How To Use the Kano Model?

WHAT IS THE KANO MODEL? HOW DOES IT WORK?

The Kano model is a framework used to Here’s where things get interesting; to

prioritize features on the roadmap based on identify how satisfied or even delighted

how likely they will satisfy or delight users. users will be with a product, we have to

Your team should pull together a list of consider the two dimensions (or plotted

features to be considered, and plot them on axes), satisfaction versus functionality. How

a chart that visualizes satisfaction versus will users react to the level of functionality

functionality. It points towards how desired of our features?

or needed a feature can be, or if users are

simply indifferent to it.

Please note

WHEN AND WHY SHOULD YOU USE This doesn’t always work as a linear

THE KANO MODEL? scale, as you’ll come to learn in the

following section, and it’s impossible

to always stay at the top of the scale.

Whenever your team is considering the list

of features to work on for your next release,

and would like to figure out what mix is the

best. This will also result in the best

allocation of limited resources and time.

Kano allows you to work out the right

combination of:

• Minimum basic features that must be

included

• Performance features to start working or

investing in

• Which delight features will impress users

the most

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 5-Minute Guide – How To Use The Kano Model

Satisfaction (Y-axis): Implementation (X-axis)

The vertical axis measures Also called investment or sophistication by

the level of satisfaction, some, this represents how well we’ve

and it ranges from implemented a certain feature, how much

frustration (or complete has been invested in its development, or

dissatisfaction), to delight how much of a particular feature the user

(or complete satisfaction). gets. It ranges from None to Best (or Very

Well Done).

The four feature buckets

Satisfaction

Performance

Delighters

Product/service

performance
Must be’s

Time

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THE FOUR “FEATURE BUCKETS” Attractive features

Looking at the graph we can quickly identify Also known as delighters. These are

and classify the features into four buckets: pleasant surprises that the user isn’t

expecting, but like the name suggests, once

Basic features
introduced they immediately generate

Also known as must-be features. These are excitement. Introducing these features can

expected by your users but they won’t be what differentiates you. Think about the

satisfy them more. Without them, they won’t time Apple introduced Apple Pay from your

even consider your product. For example, Iphone, or the first time you were able to

we expect our email to be able to import or collaborate on Google Docs.

look up contacts, or a messenger app to

These are the kind of features that make
send messages. If they don’t have this or
you go, “Wow!How cool!”, and if plotted on
the feature doesn’t work, users will simply
the graph, it’s easy to see how the slightest
go elsewhere.
increase of functionality will rapidly increase

We expect these features to be there and satisfaction.

work, and therefore we see that as our

product team puts more effort or money

FEATURES CATEGORIES CHANGE
into making them more functional, our

satisfaction grows. Yet it will never reach the

Categories change over time in a dynamic
positive quadrant. Once it reaches its
environment, just like user [Link]
maximum potential, the team can stop
users will change their perception on
investing effort into it.
product attributes in the future. What now

seems to be a game-changer to you, might

Performance features (one-dimensional)
become a standard or expected a year from

The more of these we give users, the more now. That’s why Attractive features will

satisfied they’ll be, therefore moving in a eventually transform into Performance and

linear direction. As we increase functionality, Basic features in time.

so does our investment. Examples could be:

What our customers feel about some
storage space on your cloud service, or
product attribute now is not what they’ll feel
faster internet from your provider.
in the future. Attractive features turn into

Indifferent Performance and Must-be features as time

goes by.
Certain features don’t make much of a

difference. The user feels indifferent towards

their presence or absence. Therefore you

should avoid working on these.

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THE QUESTIONNAIRE

Consider this

In order to discover customer insights about In practice, you should also consider

your product’s features, we must deploy a adding an extra question, asking

Kano questionnaire followed by an how important they consider a

evaluation of the different combinations. certain feature to be.

The questionnaire consists of questions This answer allows you to distinguish

which features are most important to

about the feature we’d like to assess, and
users. It’s a tool to differentiate big
the questions are termed functional or
from small features and the impact
dysfunctional forms:
they have on your user’s view on the

• If you have this feature, how do you feel? product.

• If you don’t have the feature, how do you

feel?

The possible answers for these questions

are:

• I like it

• I expect it

• I am neutral

• I can tolerate it

Minimal Low Medium High Massive

Functional

How would you feel if the product had…?

How would you feel if there was more of…?

Dysfunctional

How would you feel if the product did not have…?

How would you feel if there was less of…?

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EVALUATE AND PLOT

Before we proceed

The beauty of the Kano model is that when

You’ll notice that there are two new

we pair up our functional and dysfunctional

categories in the table -

answers, we uncover how much a feature is Questionable and Reverse.

wanted, needed or if our users are

• Questionable suggests that
indifferent to it.
someone didn’t quite understand the

We use an evaluation table to uncover in questions or feature being

described.
which categories our features fit, by pairing

functional answers with dysfunctional ones

• Reverse suggests that what we

in rows and columns. suggest is the opposite of what the

user wants.

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WHAT TO DO WITH OUR RESULTS? THE FINAL STEP

First you need to fully understand the table Now you know how each pairing is

and what each pairing means in terms of categorized you’ll want to get all your

categories. answers together and organize your data to

see where the features go. The two

Questionable: they are contradictory so
approaches to organizing your data are
you’ll always see them in a diagonal pattern
called discrete and continuous analysis.
across the table.

If you are new to this and don’t have much

Performance features: these are features
time, we recommend using the simpler
that users like having and dislike not having.
approach- discrete.
The more performance features, the better.

The discrete approach gathers all of your

Must-be (basic): Users dislike not having
respondents’ answers from the evaluation
them, and when present they range from
table. You should then count the total
tolerating to expecting them.
responses per category or demographic,

Attractive: Users like having features they and designate a feature’s category based

don’t expect having. The dysfunctional on the most recurrent response. This will

range will therefore go from ‘expect it’, to allow you to also place them on the

‘tolerate it’. quadrant.

Indifferent features: Will always be in the In order to prioritize your results, use the

middle of the table (as in the graph), as following order:

users are always neutral or can tolerate

Must-be , Performance, Attractive
them, in both their functional and
Indifferent.
dysfunctional answers.

You’ll end up with a table like this:

Feature M P A I R Q Total Category

Feature 1 10 4 2 1 - 3 20 M

Feature 2 4 13 1 2 - - 20 P

Feature 3 14 1 4 1 - - 20 M

Feature 4 5 3 10 - 2 - 20 A

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Why we love it A few downsides

It highlights market fit: fully Subject to inherent limitations

customer centric, it allows caused by survey delivery

immediate identification of product

advantages and weaknesses It solely focuses on customer

through its features. opinion: this means it fails to

account for a level of knowledge

It tailors a product to the needs of about the product and individual

current and target users. This allows bias.

for predictions about features and

audiences based on expectations. Prone to delayed time-to-market :

delays are due to surveying, data

collection and processing time.

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