Pretty-bow-less Research
It doesn’t happen too often, but sometimes when you get to the end of a research effort, you look at all the data and think, “Did we talk to the right people,” because there’s very little overlap in the feedback.
Sometimes you do end up talking to the wrong people. Whether it's a participant who got past your screener and shouldn't have, or the team 1 picked the wrong persona (usually because they were guessing), or someone high-up in the org says, “Everyone who has internet access is our customer.”
Sometimes they were the right people, but you were asking the wrong questions. This can usually be traced back to a lack of alignment in the team. People can be at cross-purposes (usually unintentionally) with what they want out of research, so when the results come in, no one is happy. You can often anticipate some of this if you hear the phrase, “We want to validate our ideas.”
But, sometimes you talk to the right people (they are current customers who pay real money), and you ask the right questions (each question elicits head nodding and deep discussion of challenges), and you still come away from it with little overlap of what is important to the participants.
That last one is why I’m writing this. The short answer of what it means is:
While your paying customers have some things in common, it is likely not enough in common for it to be easy for your team to have an “aha moment” of “What if the button was blue instead?”
You likely don't know enough about your customers. Perhaps you look at them and think, “Well, they all buy our cabbages, they must be the same.”3
What your research effort did discover is that you don't know your customers well enough. There's a way to rectify that!
Making products and services that meet the needs of people who have the ability to pay (and, ideally, be glad to do so) is suuuuper difficult. It’s rare that you get to the end of research (regardless of what method you use) and have everything you need wrapped up with a pretty bow.
The correct reaction when this happens is:
“We need to get to know our customers better.”
The incorrect reaction is:
“Our customers have no idea what they want, so talking to them isn’t helpful.”
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I find it important to note here: it’s okay. And by “okay” I mean “normal”. Should it be? Well, yes and no.
Yes, it is normal. Because people. Not everyone has the same experience or perspective. People arrive at realizations in their own time. All interactions are opportunities to learn.
No, it isn’t normal, because after 25 years of doing this work, I’m still having the same damn confusing-frustrating-WTF-is-wrong-with-you conversations.
I mentioned above that people can be at cross-purposes and it’s usually unintentional. When it is intentional, there isn’t much you can do about it. Especially if said intransigent people have the final say as to whether the research continues and also if your employment continues.
What can you do about it? No bloody clue, luv. Though I am more and more convinced that if your organization wants to innovate or needs to change, the first order of business would be to fire the entire C-suite. Also all the VPs. Probably a lot of the Directors. They are all invested in keeping things the same and/or Innovation Theatre.
Their job, literally, is to stand in the way of progress while making it seem like they champion progress. I know this isn’t news to you and, very likely, there are people in these positions who are not like this. But, 25 years, people. Same conversations. Same "our website is how we want to present ourselves to the world, we don't care about the people who use it" 4 perspectives.
What's the answer?
It’s two-fold.
First, write a blog post to let out some of the toxic energy that built up when you heard that talking to customers isn’t helpful.
Second, go back to being water. The crash-less kind. Because crashing head-first into that perspective will only make it reinforce itself.
I hope you have an excellent day. Once I post this, I will go back to doing so.
1 I’m including Stakeholders and Clients in this, but stuck with “team” for simplicity.
2 Please watch Avatar: The Last Airbender. It will make you a better person.
3 One result of almost all research efforts is that more research is necessary. That isn't me trying to upsell you. It’s me trying to get you to understand that Continuous Improvement includes understanding What you are supposed to be improving and for Whom. aka Research.
4 I wonder if Jim is still at The Mathworks...
