We humans really have two different brains. We have the civilized brain

and the Caveman brain.

When it comes right down to it, we get our motivations and goals from the caveman brain and then we marshal our civilized brain to achieve them.

The caveman brain is the true engine that powers our lives. You can trace pretty much every action in your life back to the motivation from your caveman mind. Thankfully the caveman mind isn’t too hard to understand. Maslow laid out what drives it pretty well in his hierarchy of needs.

The caveman brain doesn’t wander too high up the pyramid.

So how does this relate to products?

A lot of times when designing out a product, we concern ourselves with a lot of civilized brain problems. That’s all fine and good except we often forget to address the caveman brain, which is ultimately going to drive the persons action.

I’ve started using something I like go call “caveman user stories” to map out the caveman brain part of the product. They usually go something like: “ME GET MORE SAFE” or “ME FEEL LIKE BIG MAN”

This might not be as glamorous as your typical user stories but these address the core of what would actually drive someone to use your product. If your product doesn’t really solve the caveman brain’s problem you will lose, no mater how well you solve the civilized brain problems.

Get the caveman part right. Civilization can wait.

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