The Things Users Won't Tell You

Let's cut right to the chase - companies want to know what you want to buy. They really, really want to know. They email you surveys, they print feedback sweepstakes on your receipts, and they pay market researchers a LOTTA money to tell them what you want. And you tell them! You're genuinely thrilled to let them know what you're thinking! You want them to know what you want to buy too!

So what's the problem with all of that? Why does it seem so hard to find exactly what you want on the shelf? Because, honestly, you can't tell them what you want. And they're pretty silly to keep asking! For the average user the majority of any experience doesn't register in the conscious mind. The subconscious processes much of what we see, hear, touch and smell - and only the highlights are big enough to catch our full attention.
What companies could really use is insight into unarticulated needs. These are the things you won't tell them, but you'll recognize instantly when your attention is drawn to it. Take the photo above for example. When surveyed, the owner of this refrigerator was asked "can you store wine in your refrigerator" and responded "yes" with no qualifications. Upon direct observation of the user's fridge, it was obvious that wine bottle storage was not being adequately addressed.

The user isn't going to tell you what they need, but it's right there waiting to be observed through ethnographic documentation. Traditionally, ethnography demands a rigorous period of immersion into a culture for observation. The same principles can be applied to observation research on a smaller scale. Forget the focus groups. Forget the surveys. Take the plunge and get right inside the user's world - the answers are there waiting for you.

Lesson 03: Sorting Ideas

You've done your research, and now you have a big pile of photos and notes to sort through. You've had a thousand ideas and done a good job documenting them - taking digital pics and jotting down notes as you went...now what?

Step 1: Physically represent each and every little idea INDIVIDUALLY. transfer notes to individual notecards or post-its. Print out all of your images, setting your printer to print 4-6 images to a page.Step 2: Put like with like. Group notecards and images that seem to go together. Staple duplicates into little bunches to consolidate. Use your sharpie like crazy, circling, noting and X-ing out anything you think of as you go.

Step 3: Use a labeling system as you go. My favorite way to do this is to circle my icons. A question mark in a circle is an item that needs to be answered or addressed. An exclamation point in a circle is a point of interest, or a consumer insight. A lightbulb in a circle is an idea for a solution. Create your hierarchy of easily spotted icons to help you visually organize your grouped findings.Step 4: Consolidate your groups as much as possible and organize them into columns of ideas. I like to put the most promising ideas at the top. Put these columns into a logical order, a sequence that it's easy to describe to someone conversationally. This order will most likely relate to the order of questions in your design brief, resulting in a roadmap to the perfect presentation of solutions for your client.

Time to Get Back in the Game!

If you're wondering whether it's time to start getting your ducks in a row again, maybe spending a little money to develop something new for 2010....well, it's time! If you're waffling, be reassured by the quote below from AdNews:

If you identify an opportunity today, you'll be lucky to have it ready to place with retailers in fall or winter markets, which means on the shelf by next April/May at the earliest. I expect there will be a flurry of frantic calls for development towards the end of the 2009 year, but that will really be too late to avoid rush tooling, airfreight, and not to mention Chinese New Year...get moving!

What Kind of Research Should You do?

Most designers believe in the validity of research. They seriously intend to plan and execute said research every time they start a new program, but the effort is often derailed by money, timing, and follow-through.

I came across an excellent summary of research initiatives and applications on Core77 that could help you select the right research effort, so that you at least have a good chance it'll get done. Often you're aiming too high when research programs fall apart. What you need to do depends on the hypothesis you're testing - and less is often more. Overshooting won't really get you better actionable results, just more work and more money down the tubes.

Summary table of research initiatives and app's (though I'm less fond of focus groups for ANY application than this author):

Twitter: "The Ultimate Focus Group?"

First of all, no I do not endorse spending money on focus groups. I believe your money should be spent up front, identifying the right strategic and development opportunities...and focus groups can't do that. Some people still peddle focus groups for validation research to confirm hypotheses prior to market-wide launch, but this too is shaky ground.

Today the NYT ran a piece about Tropicana's decision to axe their new packaging design. Coincidentally, I was just writing about this packaging this weekend. The article is very positive about the effect of instantaneous consumer feedback on marketing and business decisions. It includes several quotes from a PR exec, including this:

“Twitter is the ultimate focus group,” Mr. Shankman said. “I can post something and in a minute get feedback from 700 people around the world, giving me their real opinions.”

While it's great to hear that businesses are listening to the average consumer, there's an underlying threat beneath this progressive mindset. It's easy to imagine how tempted companies will be to "test run" virtual concepts using Twitter-like informational goldmines. It'll be so easy to solicit feedback that many will bypass costly front-end development, sacrificing any opportunity for true user insights based on contextual experience.

Remember, Tropicana consumers had the opportunity to shop for, purchase, open, use, and contemplate the new packaging - that is the only reason they responded with enough passion and conviction to overturn the company's decisions. Smart companies will learn how to take advantage of articulated feedback without letting it overwhelm the unique insights you gain only from ethnographic research and observation.

Lesson 01: The AEIOU's of Observation

Observation is the key to understanding. Users will often tell you what they want or dislike, known as articulated feedback, but observing their unarticulated needs in context will provide the unique breakthrough insights you need to make a new product great. I'll address the best methods for seeking, compiling and analysing articulated needs in a future post. For now, it's time to learn your AEIOU's.

Imagine a scenario in which you are trying to understand how to improve upon a standard wire paperclip. You touch and use the paperclip yourself. You spin around in your chair and try to catch your office mate using one, until he notices you staring and freezes in his tracks. Maybe you even ask your parents, neighbors or friends to demonstrate using a paperclip for you. Afterwards, you have a few ideas. You noticed several things that could improve a paperclip, but when you sit down to write or sketch suddenly it seems like you're just thinking in circles. You may end up with one or two hard-won concepts that, while they are improvements, don't seem to be a broad enough base upon which to build. For most companies, this means going back to the drawing board, asking for "more to go on," or often abandoning the platform entirely.

This fruitless scenario can easily evolve into a powerful tool if you add a little technique to the recipe. Committing to the concept of observation in context (AKA not in a focus group setting) is a good step towards success. Utilizing the AEIOU method to catalog your results will help you reap the full benefit of the time you invest in observation.

What to pay attention to during an observation:

• ACTIVITIES: What are people doing? Describe tasks, paying attention to the sequence of steps (ie: task analysis).

• ENVIRONMENT: What are the details of the setting? Pay attention to the lighting, furniture, noise levels, and other influencers to the user experience.

• INTERACTIONS: What exchanges are taking place? Between people, objects, and space?

• OBJECTS: What objects do you observe? Doodle and list what they are, their uses, and abstract meanings that people give to them.

• USERS: Who's using it? What's their demographic profile? How do their unique perspectives change the experience?

Using AEIOU, you have given yourself 5 categories across which to interpret a single observation session. Each category is like a lens through which you see the product in all its deficiencies and possibilities. Assuming that you have 2 items of note for each category, 5 simple observation sessions now results in 50 line items of findings. Suddenly you have generated a pool of information that can be further analysed to reveal patterns, trends, and ranked action items. Of course, how to do that requires other techniques, but utilizing AEIOU will get you started on the path to an abundance of ideas that have the potential for much more than just one breakthrough paperclip.