Designing Features that Make it Easier for Product Recommenders to Gain Peer and Decision-maker Support

The Bottom-Up Approach, as Told by Recommenders
Bottom-up adoption is an organic process: The product’s value is first realized by an individual—the product recommender—who then champions its use across the organization. This person, often a "power user" or someone with a deep understanding of the team’s needs, is integral to promoting the product based on their positive experience.

In a recent project, we spoke with successful product recommenders to better understand their motivations, needs, and the barriers to adoption. A common theme we uncovered was that the success of bottom-up adoption relies on collaborative decision-making. When a product is recommended by a peer, it’s seen as a trusted solution. The champion leads by example, showing how the product solves relevant pain points and demonstrating the benefits to the rest of the team. This approach fosters genuine enthusiasm and engagement, as users see firsthand how the product can improve their efficiency and creativity.

UX and Design Improvements to Help Recommenders Promote the Value of Your Offering
Analyzing what we heard from recommenders, we’ve identified factors that will help product recommenders drive the bottom-up adoption of products:

• Intuitive onboarding that delivers quick time-to-value
  Recommenders need to see the value of the product quickly or they will lose interest. It all starts with a smooth onboarding experience, but after that initial flow, the product needs to be useful without referring to support docs or training videos. Prioritizing ease of use ensures that first-time users can find personal benefits without steep learning curves, significantly reducing the time it takes for them to grasp the product’s capabilities and overall use to the organization. Recommenders we spoke with identified quick time to discover value as the No. 1 consideration as they evaluate tools.
  
  
• Highlighting of differentiators to call out competitive advantages
  Recommenders often compare various products before choosing one to champion. Highlighting the product’s differentiators within the interface is crucial. Whether it’s a unique feature set or better performance in a key area, the design should call out what sets the product apart from competitors. Unique selling points should be obvious and accessible, with clear visual cues, interactive demos, or personalized comparisons. Done right, this effort can make it easier for your prospects to understand and remember the value of your offering compared to the other products they tried.
  
  
• Personalized experiences that immediately make the product relevant
  People connect more with products that solve for their needs. An effective experience should center around use cases that resonate with the recommender and their team. Tailored onboarding, relevant templates, and adaptive workflows aligned with specific roles and industries will showcase how the product can deliver immediate value. In addition, it increases the likelihood of a recommender identifying with the product and sharing its value with others.
  
  
• Easy invites for team members to broaden support
  Once a product recommender begins advocating for a tool, it’s essential to help them invite others into the experience. Features that allow easy team collaboration—such as seamless sharing, onboarding invitations, or collaborative workflows—encourage teams to explore the product together. The more value the team collectively derives from the product, the stronger the case for adoption becomes. Based on our findings, this point of expansion is often where the recommender may abandon their review of a product. If they are not empowered to invite team members into the platform, it may seem like too much effort to get people excited about the product and deliver a positive message to those signing the checks.
  
  
• Data-driven value analytics that can be handed to decision-makers
  While the recommender can drive initial use, decision-makers often want to see a clear return on investment (ROI) before committing time and money. UX design can support this by surfacing data that highlights the product’s positive impact, such as time saved on tasks, new capabilities, or reduced costs. Integrating simplified analytics and reporting tools that are accessible to both users and decision-makers can streamline this process.

Conclusion

Empowering product recommenders through thoughtful UX design is essential for successfully driving bottom-up adoption. By focusing on ease of use, helping recommenders discover key differentiators, aligning with specific use cases, enabling team collaboration, and surfacing ROI, you can create a product experience that not only engages individual users but fosters organic, team-wide adoption. This approach leads to more genuine, sustained use, ultimately ensuring the product thrives within the organization.

Keep in Touch

Our team has helped hundreds of industry leaders across SaaS, life sciences and other industries to solve many of the challenges we’ve discussed here. If you’d like to discuss ways our team can help yours with UX research, strategy and product design to move your products forward, please reach out at info@proximitylab.com.