These questions came up in a recent round of Drop in Surgeries that I held and I thought they may be useful to share.
1. How do you test an idea where you are creating a desire, rather than providing a solution to a problem?
Firstly, you need to work out the user’s context: where are they / what are they doing at the point that your product becomes relevant to them. When you think of it this way, you may realise that you are giving them a more efficient / more entertaining way to do something that they already do.
Next, you need to work out how you simulate the experience so that they understand what your product/service does. What level of prototype do you think that you need? Less is more. If you can get away with a paper prototype or even a storyboard of the experience, all the better. Do you really need to go as far as to create a beta of the product? Then you can follow the advice that I give on how to set up and interact with people to get valid and useful feedback.
2. How do I work out what features to include in my product?
Think about who your target customers are. You should have a number of different personas that you are using to help you focus. I suggest no more than 5. Who are your core target segment? Do you have 1 or 2 that you can “bullseye”? If so, you can run feature prioritisation exercises with them. This works well in a group session where you can also test brand, look and feel.
So you ask them to make a list: “What do you think that this product should do?” Then you show them what the product does. Next you ask them to prioritise all the features on both lists and come up with one list of prioritised features (and not to prioritise anything that they do not care for). Run this individually first, then try and get the group to come up with one agreed list. It is the conversation that is really important for you to listen to. You can also ask the group where the line is between the “must haves” and “nice to haves”.
If your product is already live and you have an active engaged base, you can run this exercise online, asking respondents to put features in order of importance to them and then offering a free text box for anything that is missed out. It is a slightly different result, as you cannot easily get them them to prioritise anything that is not already in your list, but very useful for getting user input to your feature roadmap, especially if you are trying to develop the customers that you already have. (Short answer!)
3. Will I really be able to run my own research as you suggest in the DIY workshops?
Well this is the challenge. The Princeton professor that trained me said I would never be able to do it. She said that I was too passionate about my product. I knew that being able to carry out research with customers direct was going to improve my performance as the product owner so I was very determined. I proved her wrong.
There are a number of core skills that you need to carry out effective user interactions; that include being able to put people at ease; being totally impartial and being able to listen. Not everybody can do it. If you can, then great. If you can’t then find someone else to do it for you. Don’t opt out all together. If you are trying to keep costs down, you may still be able to write the brief, just find someone else to run it for you. I have plenty of other tips on how to do as much as you can on a budget, but still get valuable input. Please get in touch if you want to know more.