Understanding user needs and behaviours is paramount to the success of any product.
If you want to build products which wake people up form them slumber, which make people tell their friends about,while at the same fit seamlessly into everyday’s life without disrupting them – this article is for you.
In this part of the series, we’ll explore various aspects of user research, from traditional interview methods to leveraging innovative platforms for participant recruitment and prototype testing.The knowledge you obtain from user research, represents a key driver in your pursuit for innovation and helps you (a Product manager) to become the single most informed person on the project.
| WHAT’S THE ARTICLE | WHY YOU NEED IT |
| User Research Statistics To Win Over Stakeholders | Just like Neil McElroy (from the first article), you are also here to break a few rules. This means doing things the new way – with the people who’ve done things the old way. And when they tell you there is no time/money for your work – hit them with these facts. |
| Why asking people what they want isn’t good for your business? | Another unlikely hero comes from the world of Italian cuisine. He is here to teach you that: Your job is not directional. You don’t listen and do. You learn the context and form your opinion based on which you align people around you. Aside from this nugget of wisdom, you need this TED Talk in order to really understand the power of segmentation in driving revenue. |
| User interview questions | The majority of successful products don’t really want to disrupt anyone. They seamlessly tap into their customers’ existing behaviour and add value there. In order for your products to do so: You need to learn the peripheral context of your customer to be able to answer a simple questions: Where does my product fit within the life of a customer? |
| Prolific – screening done within the tool – ability start small and increase respondents count later – Pricing example = 25 answers = 1 minute survey = 5$ Eureka – integrated with Typeform – no screening (so screening is on your side) – Pricing = 1 participant 1$ | In case you have trouble recruiting participants for your online surveys, check out these platforms. |
| Testingtime – Pricing = 25 answers = 200$ Respondent – Pricing = 39$ per participant session UserTesting – Pricing = Seat Based Examples of B2B audiences: Wealth Management/Financial Advisor Operations in Gas E-commerce Founder Fleet Manager Asset Manager Userinterviews – 45$ per interview session | If you’re in your second stage of user research, and are going for the in depth-interview approach, in case you need help finding participants, check out these platforms. |
| Loop11 Userberry Trymata ProtoPie | The platform listed here offer participants for your unmoderated prototype testing. |
| Dovetail NEXT Kraftful Mixpanel Amplitude ForwardAI theydo | The only tools you’ll need for user research data analyses. |
| Google Perplexity JumprunAI | Tools to power and inspire your market research |
| Figma Mockflow Butternut Framer | Rapid building of POCs so you can verify them via platforms listed above |
| Pro tip: | In order to make the best of all these tools: • Make sure you plan ahead your budget • Make sure your usage of these tools is in line with your product’s Privacy policy • All listed tools have a blog section, where aside from learning about the tools, you can extend your knowledge on user research |
| Bonus tool: Optimizely | Understand the effects variations of developed functionalities have on user behavior. |
Having the type of low-level data gathered from User research, and turning it into information via analyses will enable you to become the single most informed person in the room.
Consequentially – the level of decisions you can now make, raises from tactical – to strategic.This is in-line with the goal of this series:
To elevate the scope of work of Product folks, moving them from proxy-requirement-writing-top-to-bottomProduct Owners – to a place of strategic outlook and conversations about actual business impact Product managers.
With new solid understanding of user research, get ready to roll up your sleeves and dive into the practical process of prototyping because – in the next article, I’ll uncover: what it is actually that you get from building prototypes.
