Collecting Actionable Customer Insight

1. Collecting Actionable Customer Insight Bob Boehringer, Director of Strategy, Elsevier Carol Righi, UX Consultant

2. What’s the Advantage of Customer Discovery? • If you don’t address a customer need, you don’t have a product or service to sell • Validate a product concept to determine whether investment is appropriate • Gain a clearer picture of how your product / service can and should more impactfully support your customers’ workflow • The purchasing and adoption decision process is influenced by the customer, NOT your internal staff

3. What Stages of the Product Development Cycle Are Most Dependent on Research? • Idea Generation • Business Case • Product Testing / Design Refinement

4. Possible Impediments • Lack of funding • Lack of buy-in / acceptance on the part of key stakeholders • Ensure that everyone is on the same page and wants to move forward with being a data-driven organization

5. UX versus Market Research • Although both strive to learn about customer wants and needs, they go about it differently, resulting in different types of data Content used by permission of Gina Bhawalkar, Scottrade

6. Key Components of a Successful Research Plan • Clearly defined objective • Targeted customer sample(s) • The right methodology • Questions that get to meaningful, predictive data • Analysis – interpretive and contextual

7. Clearly Defined Objectives • What is your overall goal? • What questions do you need answered?

8. Targeting Customer Samples • Define target audience • Segment as appropriate • Evaluate your ability to reach your target • Determine target sample size

9. Methodology Qualitative Quantitative Provides narrative color and context; smaller sample Provides larger scale; more statistically relevant; typically used in latter stage of research Advantages • Great complement to quantitative • Offers more detail and context Limitations • Can be costly • Because samples are smaller, generalizations can not be formally made • Unless themes emerge, data can be complex to analyze Advantages • Findings can be used to make assumptions • Fairly easy to analyze results • Cost efficient Limitations • Limited context

10. The Best Research is a Multi-Step Process Understanding Of Customer Workflow Formulate Hypotheses Crystallize Product Concept What Pain Will You Address? Test Hypotheses Shape Business Case

11. Good Questions = Good Data Discussion Guides • Questions should align with objectives • Avoid questions that ask customers to predict what they might do; the only thing that predicts future behavior is past behavior • Ask questions about current and past behavior • Ask the “why” behind a response as appropriate • Develop questions with an eye toward how data will reported

12. Good Questions = Good Data Surveys • Questions should align with objectives • Select your questions judiciously; fewer is better • Craft and pilot questions • Too many open-ended questions will typically decrease response rates; multiple choice/scenario questions can get to similar data • Develop questions with an eye toward how data will be reported

13. Analysis: Going Beyond Data • Straight data reporting is of limited use • Identify common themes • Findings should ultimately answer key business questions • Organize findings in a way that tells a compelling story; “package” your data in a way that resonates with your audience • Including verbatims can add credibility • Once product is defined and designed, UX can inform all aspects of product development

14. Moving Beyond the Business Case Test the detailed design Understand customerconceptual models Test the prototypes Document styles, Templates, conventions Create low-fidelity prototypes Flesh out the detailed design

15. About the Presenters • Bob Boehringer • Bob Boehringer has been involved in developing marketing strategies for twenty years. He’s been involved in customer-facing strategies throughout the span of his career, including marketing campaigns, branding initiatives, longitudinal customer pulse studies and product research. He is currently a Director of Strategy, Educational Digital Solutions, for Elsevier.

16. About the Presenters • Carol Righi • Carol Righi hold a PhD. in psychology and is a professional human-computer interaction designer and researcher. Carol has close to 20 years of consulting experience, including a stint for IBM Global Services. Carol currently runs her own User Experience consulting company, CarolRighi.com. • Carol’s publications can be found at: http://carolrighi.com/about_pubs.htm