Ethnography is the branch of anthropology that involves trying to understand how people live their lives. Unlike traditional market researchers, who ask specific, highly practical questions, anthropological researchers visit consumers in their homes or offices to observe and listen in a non directed way. In the HBR article, Ethnographic Research: A Key to Strategy, Ken … Read more
Interviews are one of the basic methods of requirements gathering, usability testing, and task analysis. In order to remove our personal biases, expectations and opinions from the questions asked, one of the questioning technique is non directed interview, sometimes called unstructured interview. Mike Kuniavsky, author and a twenty-year veteran of digital product development shares in … Read more
We are now living in the ‘Age of the Customer’ where the pace of technologic advancement and customer empowerment continues to disrupt today’s business models. The key to competitive survival is data and insights-driven customer obsession. Customer obsession means constantly listening to customers and continuously testing, enhancing, and personalizing the customer experience. According to The … Read more
From the article,”To Understand Consumer Data, Think Like an Anthropologist” in From Data to Action: a Harvard Business Review Insight Center Report, Susan Fournier and Bob Rietveld share: “Corporate social-listening efforts are typically driven by econometricians, computer scientists, and IT technicians—the people who are experts in database management. They understand digital information, but they don’t always … Read more
Is big data enough? Aggregate numbers can tell you a lot, but they say very little about how individual customers are thinking and talking about your products. In the article, Don’t Let Data Paralysis Stand Between You and Your Customers, From Data to Action: a Harvard Business Review Insight Center Report, Harald Fanderl shares that: … Read more
You are providing solutions for your customers. Are you meeting their needs? How do you know? You know that Sales decreased or renewals went down or they left before they made the purchase. But why? If you want to know – if you want to do something about it – then you must measure it. … Read more
According to Dr. BJ Fogg, founder of the Persuasive Tech Lab at Stanford University and the Fogg Behavioral Model, persuasive technology uses seven strategies to influence behavior: Reduction – Simplify the task the user is trying to do. Tunneling – A step-by-step sequence of activities that guides the user through the behavior. Tailoring – Provide feedback … Read more
While attending San Diego’s Medical Device and Technology Network meetup, the always wonderful Dr. Joely Gardner, author, speaker, and industry leader human factors and usability testing expert in medical devices, software, and web-based applications, shared with us insightful, real-life stories from the field. One of the things that Dr. Gardner shared is the FDA change from “User … Read more
Full disclosure, I love Aha! Product Management road-mapping software and have introduced it to several companies. When I saw this post by Brian de Haaff, Aha! Founder and CEO, I had to share it. Here’s what Brian shares on how to create a brilliant product roadmap: Define your strategy. What is the market potential, and … Read more
Personas Personas help you specify the context of use by identifying the people who will use your solution, what they will use it for, and under what conditions they will use it. They help you to create a point of view that is based on your target audiences’ needs and insights so you can see … Read more
From think with Google, Mobile App Development: How to Create a Useful App: “Our user-centric thinking guided us even as we began developing our app, and taught us how true innovation happens when usability informs technology. This—along with a deep dive into the principles of mobile app design—helped us take the right steps to design and … Read more
The Narrowing Effect is a result of not having enough time to make a decision. To manage the stress of time crunches, we focus on a main task and ignore or filter out all other things. This helps us make a decision quickly when we have to but may increase our risk of not making … Read more