This document discusses the importance of understanding customers through direct conversations like interviews and observations. Insights from these qualitative research methods can inform both new product and service development as well as internal changes within organizations. Some effective methods mentioned include ethnography, depth interviews, home visits, and contextual research. The document emphasizes examining people in their natural contexts to understand their behaviors and perspectives.

1. Discover and Act on
1 Insights About People

2. In this session…
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Some of the most effective ways of understanding what
customers want or need – going out and talking to them –
are surprisingly indirect.
Insights produced by these methods impact two facets of
innovation: first as information that informs the development
of new products and services, and second as catalysts
for internal change.
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3. Madness in Master title
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Ethnography
Ethnographic interviews
Video ethnography
Depth-interviews
Contextual research
Home visits
Site visits
Experience modeling
Design research
User-centered design
One-on-ones
Camera studies
User safaris
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4. Madness in Master title
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Ethnography
Ethnographic interviews
Video ethnography
What-ever!
Depth-interviews
Contextual research
Home visits
Site visits
Experience modeling
Design research
User-centered design
One-on-ones
Camera studies
User safaris
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5. Whatever you want to call it…
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Examine people, ideally in their own context
Gather their stories
What are they doing?
What does it mean?
Synthesize the stories
Find the patterns and connections
Apply to business and design problems
Create new stories that reframe how the organization
talks and thinks
Use products, services, packaging, design to manifest
that new story in the marketplace
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6. “Examine” using a title style
Click to edit Masterrange of methods
Interview “Tell us about how you’re using this product…”
Tasks “Can you draw me a map of your computer network?”
Participation “Can you show me how I should make a Whopper?”
Demonstration “Show us how you update your playlists.”
“I’ll be the customer and you be the receptionist, and you
Role-playing
show me how they should respond.”
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7. “Examine” using a title style
Click to edit Masterrange of methods
Participant takes regular digital photos or fills out a booklet
Logging
documenting their activities
Participant saves up all their junk mail for two weeks to
Homework
prompt our discussion
Stimuli Review wireframes, prototypes, simulations, storyboards
What’s in your wallet? What’s in your fridge?
Exercises
Sketch your idealized solution
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8. Ask how they would solve a
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Participatory design Engage people in the non-
Doesn’t mean we implement the literal through games and
requested solution literally role-playing
“I wish it had a handle”
Uncover underlying principles
Many ways to solve the underlying and explore areas of
need (“I need to move it around”) opportunity that don’t yet exist
Designers work with this data to
generate alternatives
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9. Show people a solution
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There’s a difference between testing
and exploring
Avoid “Do you like this?”
Don’t show your best guess at a solution; instead
identify provocative examples to surface hidden
desires and expectations
Image from Roberto and Worth1000.com
Make sure you are asking the right
questions
What does this solution enable? What problems
does it solve?
For new products especially, you need this info
before implementation specifics
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10. Observing pain points
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While we always uncover so-called pain points, bigger
opportunities may come from understanding why – how did
we get here?
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11. It may not really be title painful
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Satisficing (coined by Herbert Simon in 1956) refers to our
acceptance of good-enough solutions
These can drive engineers and designers crazy…but the
real problem isn’t always what it appears to be
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12. Click to edit Master title style
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13. Choosing what types of people
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Typically, start with the people you
want to design for
Also consider people who can
articulate a point of view
Early adopters, lead users, analogous
or adjacent users
Triangulate through multiple
perspectives
People who haven’t done “it” yet
People who stopped doing “it”
By creating contrast you reveal key influencing factors that
you wouldn’t otherwise see
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14. The to edit Master teachable
Clicktechniques are title style
The UX community offers up
a bountiful supply of
webinars, books, workshops,
and conferences to help
develop mastery of the tools
What tools is your team adept at?
What skills do you need to build?
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15. But for edit Master title style
Click tomany organizations, this is a cultural shift
A shift in what we think the customer’s problem is
Are we open to uncovering other problems?
A shift in what we think the solution is
Are we open to considering other solutions?
Is your organization committed to creating the kinds of experiences people
are seeking?
We must be comfortable with ambiguity
How tolerant are you with not knowing the answer at different points in the
process?
How tolerant are you for qualitative data and its rich stories and insights?
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16. Stories edit Master title style
Click to make culture change happen
To start a culture change we need to do two simple things:
1. Do dramatic story-worthy things that represent the
culture we want to create. Then let other people tell stories
about it.
2. Find other people who do story-worthy things that
represent the culture we want to create. Then tell stories
about them.
We can change our stories and be changed by them.
From A Good Way to Change a Corporate Culture, Peter Bregman, HBR blog
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17. Make the case (for title style
Click to edit Master outcomes, not process)
Don’t lead with “We have to talk
to customers!”
First investigate to understand
What information does the team need
to do their work?
Do they have that information?
What has been tried? What worked?
What didn’t work? Why?
Your recommended approach
must be rooted in that context.
Your emphasis is on solving the
business problem.
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18. Prochaska Master title style
Click to edit& Diclemente’s Stages of Change
Image: @symplicit and @jodiemoule
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19. Diagnose, then target response
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Tactics: http://www.cellinteractive.com/ucla/physcian_ed/stages_change.html
Image: @symplicit and @jodiemoule
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20. “Research” Master title style
Click to edit playing nicely with “design”
Understand Create
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21. “Research” Master title style
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Create
Understand Create
Create
Create
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22. “Research” Master title style
Click to edit playing nicely with “design”
Understand
Create
Understand Create
Understand
Create Understand
Create
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23. Make ideation part title style
Click to edit Masterof research
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24. Consider resources
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2-3 weeks 2-3 weeks 2-3 weeks
Who do you What do you Do
want to talk want to do Fieldwork something
to? with them? with the data!
Screening Methodology, Interviews, self- Analysis,
criteria, recruiting field guide, reporting, synthesis, design
stimuli debriefs
Educate others what it takes to accomplish this. Resistance may be
based on naïve assumptions (e.g., seeing “every” customer).
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25. When time Master title style
Click to editis a constraint
1 day?! 1 day?! 2 days?!!
Who do you What do you Do
want to talk want to do Fieldwork something
to? with them? with the data!
Who can you Wide-eyed Small sample, Debrief
get? Co-workers, observation, massively
intercepts on the winging it parallel data
street or in the gathering
mall, etc.
Make your stakeholders aware of tradeoffs. Develop expertise in
project planning and propose the right-size approach.
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26. Cultural insights drive culture
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Even in re-creating an
ordinary task, a concern
about being “rude”
Latent behavior that
participant was barely
aware of
Revealed crucial
framework that drove
biggest opportunities for
our client – even if they
were unwilling to
acknowledge them at first
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27. Coming up!
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A book by Steve Portigal
The Art and Craft of User Research Interviewing
http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/user-interviews/
Share your fieldwork War Stories
http://www.portigal.com/series/WarStories/
UXLX @steveportigal Portigal

28. Click to edit Master title style
Thank you!
Portigal Consulting @steveportigal
www.portigal.com steve@portigal.com
UXLX @steveportigal +1-415-894-2001
Portigal