Customer validation with Diary Studies

Customer Validation using Diary Studies

LeanCamp London 2

January 18, 2012

@boonych • #leandiary

About me

UX designer at SapientNitro

Formerly a developer (startups, prototyping, telecoms, rich internet apps)

MSc Human-Computer Interaction

UXCampLondon organiser


uxcamplondon.org

Why this talk

• Lean startup “epiphany”

• Gaps: Need more qualitative methods for holistic view

• Applying & integrating

• Learning & sharing


The point

Plan and visualize with _validated_ data

Improve customer understanding and decision making process

Improve chances of building what customers really want


Some assumptions


“The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build—the thing customers want and will pay for—as quickly as possible.”

Eric Ries, The Lean Startup


“The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build—the thing customers want and will pay for—as quickly as possible.”



Validated customer insight

Actionable learning, tightly

integratedwith tools &

metrics

“…customer archetype is a hypothesis, not a fact. The customer profile should be considered provisional until the strategy has shown via validated learning that we can serve this type of customer in a sustainable way.”



“…customer archetype is a hypothesis, not a fact. The customer profile should be considered provisional until the strategy has shown via validated learning that we can serve this type of customer in a sustainable way.”



Continuous researchImprove research methods iteratively

Evolve the data & learning

Customer Validation


Diary Studies help here

Caveats

• Only the basics

• Not a silver bullet

• There is help around

• Learn from each other


Diary Studies from 30,000 feetWhat? How? Why?

Analyzing and gaining insights

Practical tips

Ideas on how to apply


A diary study involves participants reporting their activities over a specific period of time, usually apart from the researcher and in their normal daily lives.


Benefits

• Why users behave a certain way

• Right context & environment

• Remote

• Sample over a duration

• Bridge qualitative & quantitative

• Integrate with metrics & tools

• Flexibility



Users record thoughts, comments, etc. over time

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanessabertozzi/877910821http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/3599753183/http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevendepolo/3020452399/http://www.flickr.com/photos/jevnin/390234217/

Interview usersGather feedback, data

Organise and analyse(affinity maps, analytics)

Participants keep a record of“When” data

Date & time

Duration

Activity / task

“What" data

Activity / task

Feelings / mood

Environment / setting


No one right way to collect data


Structured

Yes/no

Select a category

Date & time

Multiple choice

Unstructured

Open-ended

Opinions / thoughts / feelings

Notes / comments

Combine / mix & match

http://www.flickr.com/photos/roboppy/9625780/http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanessabertozzi/877910821

Organize before analyze


Affinity mapping (integrate with “To the whiteboard”* exercises)

•Extract notes from interview data•Place similar notes together, repeat•“tag” clusters according to topic, title, concept, etc.•Extract learning and insights by illustrating the whole concept•See “Rich Pictures” from Soft Systems Methodology

*See “Enterprise guide to customer development” by Brant Cooper & Patrick Vlaskovits

Demo time!How to make sense of your data


“Hygiene” aspects

At the beginning

•Introduction / get-to-know-you

•Demographics & psychographics, profiling

•Instructions / Setting expectations

At the end

•Follow-up

•Thanks / token gift

•Reflection


Pitfalls

• Belief bias

• Behavior adjustment

• Ramp-up time

• Failure to recall


Ideas!

@boonych • #leandiaryhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/danieloop/5336396524/

Start small, be nimble

• Low-tech (email, SMS, twitter, paper/pen, phone interviews)

• Simple, not complex, diary forms

• Let users just ‘dump’ facts, don’t force them to think so much

• Catch up regularly & share often

• Tweak on the fly


Bring an observer or two

• Efficiency is shared experience

• Bring one or two key stakeholders along to the interview sessions (e.g. lead dev, mktg, sales, CEO, etc.

• Share and contrast: Don’t be precious about your own viewpoints

@boonych • #leandiaryhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/qkgirl/4837119913/

Map diary to session tracking


Validate diary data against your metrics. Customers sometimes behave differently than what they say. Make the data richer.

Integrate with business metrics

• Use diary studies to test business assumptions

• Test against segments

• Useful for generative or evaluative research

• Scale up or down

• Test with prototypes

• Etc.

@boonych • #leandiaryTaken from “Enterprise guide to customer development” by Brant Cooper & Patrick Vlaskovits

‘Hidden’ insights from qualitative data

• Useful for new ideas

• Generates more questions

• Hidden facts about customers

• Stuff you never knew to look

• Store them for later


Take-aways

• Diary studies are flexible, tweak to your requirements

• Use it to address gaps in your research data

• Integrate it with your existing measurement machinery

• Refine and iterate your approach


ThanksMore on diary studies

http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-usability/diary-study-guide.shtml

http://www.system-concepts.com/articles/usability-articles/2011/a-quick-start-guide-to-online-diary-studies.html

Analyzing using affinity maps

http://www.usabilitybok.org/methods/affinity-diagram?section=how-to

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_86.htm

Gamestorming book by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown, James Macanufo

Get in touch: @boonych on Twitter, or gluethink.com


Design

Customer validation with Diary Studies