You aren’t always your target market.

Basic Points about Getting Feedback on Your Business Idea

What can I teach in 2 hours?

A working session

What Why How Then what?

What is the difference?

VALIDATION vs RESEARCH

What do you think is the difference? They aren’t exclusive. From the class: “Validation as an objective / end-goal, and research as a means or a process.” You validate through research. But, not all research is validation.

1 2 3

Discovery Planning VerificationStrategy Design Development

The kind of research objectives you have depend on where you are in the process. Validation — of course, happens when you already have an idea or product and are just testing it. There are also research types geared more towards discovery (finding needs to solve or build on).

Why do it?

We do no market research.- Steve Jobs, in Fortune Magazine

1. “Apple’s goal isn’t to make money.”

2. Apple designs for themselves.

From the class: “We can’t all be Steve Jobs.” Apple designs its products for developers, designers and engineers, just like the people working on them. More often than not, businesses and organizations cater to a market that isn’t similar to its creators/leaders.

The deeper into the development, the higher the cost to change the idea/ product / features.

How do we go about it?

Learning about the context of people whom we’d want to use our products

Interpreting itApplying it to our business or design problem

Many types of research, that you can look into on your own. These are three main steps. Similarly stated in Steve Portigal’s “Interviewing Users: Spinning Data into Gold” on Slideshare.

Figuring out what we need to solve

Learning about the context of people whom we’d want to use our products

Interpreting itApplying it to our business or design problem

The pre-work step then becomes crucial. Figuring out what you need to solve (so you know what to do after your consumer feedback is analyzed).

LISTEN

Figuring out what we want to solve

Learning about the context of people whom we’d want to use our products

Interpreting itApplying it to our business or design problem

PLAN ANALYZE APPLY

USEFUL vs USABLE

What do I need to know?

Ask yourselves what kind of decision you’re making: 1) Are you so confident in the idea (i.e. you never know, you could have the next iPod or Angry Birds in your hands), that you’re really only testing the

usability (task success, comprehension) and design (layout, look and interactions) of it 2) Or are you seeking direction about whether they’ll even want to use it, in the first place?

Will something that is popular automatically make money?

I liked this question, that I saw in a product design and development forum called Tavern: Does a popular product = money? If something is viral or popular, does it mean that it’s viable and profitable? The best answer (you can look it up) was that: not all popular entities become profitable, but all profitable businesses need to have a popular product (popular, even on a niche level - enough to have a loyal following).

POPULARITY vs USABILITYRelevance, Viability Ease, Learnability

A build on the previous question would then be — are you asking for feedback to gauge: - usability (Can people successfully perform tasks I want them to do with my product?) or - popularity (Will there be enough people who will want to use what we’re making?)

What will the insight be used for?

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Test Objectives !

how will it be measured?

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Criteria/Data !

what is the product supposed to do?

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Product Objectives !

who are the ideal users?

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Participant Specs !

what is the best way to test it?

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Research Method !

what resources do i need?

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Scoping !

This is an outline of the flow researchers ask themselves when planning to talk to consumers. This cleans up the kinds of things you ask, and helps you prioritize what need to get out of talking to people.

• Whether or not accomplish!• Speed!• Mistakes and self-correction!• Work-arounds!• Body language

Behavioral

To check whether your product is usable, check: - Are they able to perform the priority tasks (that I would want my users to do)? - How quickly or slowly is he/she able to do it? - Do they make mistakes during a task? And if they do, are they able to correct themselves? - Did they find their own ways to achieve certain tasks? What did they do instead? - How did their facial expression, posture and gestures change as they used the site? Does it signal a positive experience (satisfaction, ease) or negative

(confusion, annoyance, fatigue)?

• Introduction!• Participant Background (possible explanations for answers)!• Process / Routine related to task!• Preferences and dislikes: Related to idea!• Probes: How choose certain things to do

Attitudinal

To check whether your product could be popular, probe into: - How they describe themselves - How they go about the tasks or processes surrounding the needs your product wants to answer (routine, people they contact, context or setting, what devices /

websites / apps they currently use) - Their reasons for their current routine (how they ended up doing what they do now) - What they like about their current process? And what they don’t like (pain points) - Reasons for liking / disliking (What made them like that element?)

Ethnographic,Field,

Studies,Usability,Lab,Studies,

Data,mining,

Live,tes;ng,(wide,base),

Focus,Groups,

InAdepth,Interviews,

Surveys,Qualita;ve, Quan;ta;ve,

Behavioral,

AEtudinal,

Diary,

CardAsor;ng,Desirability+studies+

Eye/tracking+

Benchmarking,

A simple framework that organizes different research types used for design and product development. You can search the web, or contact me (@yellowicepick) for clarifications about when to use each. The framework is: Organized by whether the study is Qualitative (characteristics, verbal, best for in-depth why’s and how’s) or Quantitative (numerical, quantifiable, better for having a stable base of data), and Attitudinal (Preferences, Feelings - more subjective and opinion-driven) versus Behavioral (More observation-based, tracks movement and habits, more than opinion and verbal responses)

no absolute objectivity.

When talking to consumers, keep in mind: No one is 100% objective. This includes you. !To be honest, difficult to orient about the entire range of research types in one class. Instead, will leave with a few rules of thumb when talking to consumers. (We don’t want to waste each other’s time by asking a) questions that don’t help you solve your business needs or b) asking or listening in a way that won’t help solve your business needs)

AWARENESS.

I recommend a critical step before you step out into the wild and talk to consumers: Be aware of your own answers (i.e. biases and expectations) to your own questions. !Meaning: before you start, sit a teammate down, and ask each other the questions you plan on asking your target participants. This way, you get to flesh out and listen to the kinds of answers you’re predisposed to. Having them out in the open allows you to better compare the spontaneous responses of your participants.

DEFENSE MECHANISMScoping

There isn’t anything wrong with this, its just how were hard-wired. Our minds are programmed to cope.

Denial Acting as if something painful doesn’t existRepression Forgetting that something painful happened

Regression Refusing to accept a current experience by reverting to behavior from an earlier development stage

Displacement Taking thoughts and feelings out on another person, object, etc.

Acting Out Releasing pressure through behavior that doesn’t consider personal or social consequences

Projection Attributing thoughts, feelings you don’t like about yourself to another person

Reaction Formation

Converting unwanted thoughts into their opposite; expressing behavior opposite to your feelings

IntellectualizationThinking away distressing or unacceptable situations, experiences or thoughts without emotion or considering emotional consequences

Rationalization Putting behavior or experiences in a different light or offering a different explanation

Sublimation Refocusing or transforming conflicted or unacceptable emotions into productive outlets

To illustrate, this is just a classic psychology class list of different defense / coping mechanisms we have that we may need to unpack, so that we get to sincerely listen to consumers. What design agency Ideo calls “beginner’s mind” — facing a situation as if it were your first time, as if you had no idea about it and are learning about it yourself.

Then what do I do with it?

For analysis, I will point to another full

PROCESSING QUALITATIVE DATA

Screen capture, Sherlock - BBC

This is just a basic, bare-bones flow for analyzing qualitative data: or tracking the words and reactions your consumers might say. A more fun version is having a story-sharing session (as outlined in Ideo’s Human-Centered Design Toolkit, which is downloadable online. For free.) It’s the typical scene (shown in portfolios) where design teams take turns talking about what they heard and found in their research, and everyone writes down things that stood out to them, on Post-its. The next step is then, clustering the Post-its, until the team sees themes that emerge, and can then draw insight from them.

“Codebook”

List - Sort - Cluster - Track

“Codebook”

List of a good mix of responses.Cluster common answers.

Screen capture, Sherlock - BBC

Sample data: Raw responses

Sample data: Clustered

What Why How Then what?

Hopefully, the talk answered the basic questions. For more, will be sending links to helpful articles and presentations online.