Get up from the chair before your start designing — The 7 Step guide to customer research

Getting up from the chair & meeting the prospective customers needs to follow a concrete methodology so as to achieve the desired goals for customer research.

Sharing the 7 step guide as suggested by Google Ventures:

1. Plan Your Questions

It’s always a good practice to decide what are the key areas which you wish to know. Compile a list of questions that can help focus on assumptions made by you. It’s also encouraged to not necessarily stick strictly to the list of the questions & let the customer wander a bit to discover potent insights.

2. Decide Whom to talk to

You need to figure out who would be the best positioned people to answer your queries. They should be the representative of the target market envisioned by you. It’s a good practice to clarify such doubts beforehand so that the people can also be the customers of the finished product.

3. Plan the Interview

It’s a rare and crucial skill to structure the interviews. Deciding on the place of the interview , order of questions , method of recording & analyzing the generated data , such questions can be help to ensure best results of the customer research.

4. Share Prototypes if possible

It’s desirable to share the prototypes with the interviewee to get the their opinion. It helps the customer to visualize & get a clear understanding of the product. Moreover, it positively impacts the quality of the answers.

5. Listen first , Sell later

The idea here is to ensure that the aim of the customer research is to identify what people want so that you can build the product accordingly. It’s not the platform to pitch the product but to get feedback & listen carefully so as to understand the users’ pain point sincerely. It’s best to ask open ended questions & get real insights. It enriches the design process immensely.

6. Reiterate to the research participant

It’s advisable to summarize your understanding to the participant once they have finished the interview. It helps to give them an option correct the understanding if needed. It’s encouraged to be doubly sure of the insights so as to not misconstrue it later.

7. Summarize of your insights

Collate and summarize the trends , data driven insights , relevant parameters or learnings.

Getting up from the chair & conducting high quality customer research can empower designers to build quality products from the beginning & helps in delivering exemplary user experience.

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