Customer Research & Persona Development

Customer Research&

Persona Development

Will Evans | @SemanticWill


LEAN USER EXPERIENCE

“Life is too short to design & build something that no one wants”

- Ash Maurya


Mantra: You are not the user.

Only through research can we uncover people’s pain, needs, and goals, in

context.


Why Customer Research?

“Insights about your customers or users were never discovered sitting at your

fucking couch”.

- me


Malkovich Bias

The tendency to believe that everyone uses technology the same way you do.


Personas, WTF?

• Personas are an archetype of your actual, validated customers based on research

• Personas are not a sheet of paper• (Just) making personas up is useless • BUT – creating persona hypotheses gets the

ball moving… to do research


“Personas are to Persona Descriptions as

Vacations are to Photo Albums”


0

My bullshit customer insights graph

People

Insights


0

12

Lots

People

Insights

The most striking truth of this curve is that zero users give zero insights

My bullshit customer insights graph


“Your responsibility is to step out of your own perspective, to really exercise empathy and completely immerse yourselves in the

point of view, and the psychological state, of the person your hoping to design a solution

for”

- me


Lean Principles

• Context First• Hypotheses, Not Requirements• Opinions = Guesses• Visualize your work• Validate customer needs• Reduce cycle times• Last responsible moment



HOW TO DO IT


Before Interviews

• Identify who you interviewing• Articulate customer hypotheses• Craft a topic map for your sessions• Write down your prompts


9 Keys to Customer Research1. One at a time

2. Always pair interview (if you can)

3. Introduce yourself

4. Record the conversation

5. Ask general, open ended questions to get people to open up

6. Ask questions around the problem space “Do you often encounter a problem like X?

7. Then ask: “Tell me about it…”

8. Listen more than talk

9. Separate behavior from narrative


Guidelines

• It’s about empathizing. Listen, even when people go off topic

• Context is King – document it, and make sure the context of research maps to that of problem space

• Start from the assumption that everything you know is wrong


You need to gather:

• Factual information• Behavior• Pain points• Goals

You can document this on the persona validation boardAs well as…

Photos, video, audio, journals…document everything


During the interview

DO

Take notes

Smile

Ask open-ended questions

Get their story

Shut up and listen

Don’t

Talk about your product

Ask about future behavior

Sell

Ask leading questions

Talk much


Ways to start

• Tell me about …• How so …• What are your thoughts on …• Could you elaborate on …• Give some examples of …• What are your thoughts on …• Tell me the last time you …



Caveat

Qualitative research cannot be used to unequivocally prove or disprove a hypothesis

about the customer or solution.


Analysis

“We tend to project our own rationalizations and beliefs onto the

actions and beliefs of others”- Don Norman

So… be weary of these…


5 Common Biases in Customer Research

• Confirmation Bias• Framing Effect• Observer-expectancy Effect• Recency Bias• False Consensus


Confirmation Bias

Your tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms your preconceptions or hypotheses.


Framing Effect

When you and your team draw different conclusions from the same data based on your own preconceptions.


Observer-expectancy

When you expect a given result from your research which makes you unconsciously manipulate your experiments to give you that result


Recency Bias

This results from disproportionate salience attributed to recent observations (your very last interview) – or the tendency to weigh more recent information over earlier observations



False Consensus

The tendency for you to overestimate the degree to which others agree with you.


Analysis

• Single customer storyboarding, and then…• Multiple customer analysis

– Write all insights on post-its– Affinity map into facts, behaviors, needs, goals– Identify types of potential customers– Name them– Fill out the persona validation board


What next?

The point of the research is to seek insight into user behavior, goals, and needs that

might be supported by the design of a product or service.

so…


Demand Creation

• How will your customer segments hear about your product?

• How does market type impact your strategy?

• How much will it cost to acquire customers using these strategies

• What does the lifetime customer value need to be to justify these strategies?


Enough Theory!

“Insights about your customers or users were never discovered sitting at your fucking desk”.

- me


Thanks!


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Technology

Customer Research & Persona Development