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Exercise: Picking a Research Topic

Exercise: Picking a Research Methodology

The Most Important Methodologies

The Dangers of Picking Research Methodologies

Expert Advice from Steve Krug

Once you have an idea of who your user is, you’re going to need to get to know them better. This is harder than it sounds. A huge mistake that I see non-researchers make when they start doing user research is that they just go out and start talking to people.

They’ll accost people at a coffee shop and ask whether they like a particular product. Or they’ll do a usability test to figure out if somebody will buy. Or they’ll send out a survey to decide what feature to build next. Or they’ll do a focus group.

These sorts of “studies” are all worse than useless. They are actively harmful to your product development process. Not only do they not give you the kind of information that you’re looking for, but they also can give you incorrect information. It’s not that these particular research methodologies can’t be useful. They’re incredibly useful when used for the right thing (well, except for focus groups). The problem is that they’re so often used incorrectly.

Take talking to people in coffee shops. Getting 20 people to smile politely at you while you pitch them your idea does not constitute validation of your market. People are generally polite, and most of them will nod encouragingly and agree that your product is going to be fantastic in exchange for a $5 Frappuccino. Even if they didn’t lie just to get you to go away, they’d still be incapable of telling you whether or not they would use your product, largely because the chances that you found someone at random who meets your target persona is extremely low.

On the other hand, coffee shop research can be used very effectively if you’re looking for simple usability testing of an onboarding flow for a general consumer product. In other words, you can use this sort of testing to figure out if people are able to use your products, but unless you’re selling coffee or coffee shop related items, you can’t find out if anybody wants to buy your new product by asking people you find at Starbucks.

The reason that people fall back on things like coffee shop testing or simple usability studies is that those types of testing are easy. They’re quick. They’re a thing that you can go out and do right now. When the thing you’re trying to learn is answered by one of those methods, they can be powerful, but there are more research techniques in the world than those, and it’s worth learning which ones will help you learn what you really need to know.

First, you have to figure out exactly what you want to learn.

EXERCISE