When I am in the middle of something, I want not to lose it to a fault, so my effort does not depend on everything working perfectly.

Job context

Who

Someone working inside a tool

When

At any moment mid-task

Trigger

Losing an afternoon's work to a fault

Situation

The user bears the consequence of a fault they did not cause

Constraints

No control over reliability at all

5 Pains

• Losing work in progress

  High

  With no way to recover it.

  Root cause: Autosave does not cover every state of the work

• No warning when the system will fail

  High

  So nothing can be prepared.

  Root cause: System state is not published in time

• Nobody to reach when it is urgent

  High

  Support answers hours later.

  Root cause: Support is staffed for average volume rather than for the peak

• Nobody compensates the loss

  Medium

  The terms exclude all liability.

  Root cause: Service terms are written to limit the provider's liability

• Cannot tell whose fault it is

  Medium

  So time goes to checking your own side first.

  Root cause: There is no signal distinguishing a provider-side incident

5 Desired Outcomes

• Not lose work in progress

  Functional

• Know in advance when the system has a problem

  Functional

• Reach someone immediately when it is urgent

  Social

• Be compensated when the loss is the provider's fault

  Functional

• Know immediately whose side the fault is on

  Functional

5 Existing Solutions

A solution is not the same thing as a product, a customer can hire a behaviour or a workaround too.

• Save manually and often

  Behaviour

  A self-protective habit, user effort spent on a product's problem.

• Work elsewhere and paste it in

  Workaround

  The safest route, discarding every benefit of the tool.

• Watch the service status page

  Product

  The official source, usually updated after users already knew.

• Search whether others have the same issue

  Behaviour

  The fastest way to learn whose fault it is, outside every official channel.

• Accept it and start again

  Behaviour

  What nearly everyone does, producing a signal for nobody.

2 Opportunity Gaps

• The loss from an incident falls entirely on the user, time and work gone, while the service terms exclude the provider's liability.

  Why existing solutions fail: Because it does not pay for user losses, a provider weighs reliability only against its own costs, so the market's reliability always sits below what both sides together would choose.

  Potential opportunity: Compensation tied to downtime, so reliability carries a price for whoever controls it.

• There is no signal telling a user the fault is on the provider's side, so everyone begins by doubting themselves.

  Why existing solutions fail: The status page is updated by the provider and admitting an incident has contractual and reputational consequences, so it is always updated later than users need, a decision rather than a technical shortcoming.

  Potential opportunity: An incident signal built from users' own reports, independent of the provider's status page.