Validating Product Ideas: Through Lean User Research

386 Pages·2016·12.95 MB·English

by  Tomer Sharon

VALIDATING PRODUCT IDEAS
THROUGH LEAN USER RESEARCH
Tomer Sharon
Validating Product Ideas
Through Lean User Research
By Tomer Sharon
Rosenfeld Media, LLC
457 Third Street
Brooklyn, New York
11215 USA
On the Web: www.rosenfeldmedia.com
Please send errors to: [e-mail]
Publisher: Louis Rosenfeld Managing Editor: Marta Justak Illustrations: Noam Lamdan Story
Photographer: Stephen Dobeck Interior Layout Tech: Danielle Foster Cover Design: The Heads of State
Indexer: Sharon Shock Proofreader: Sue Boshers © 2016 Rosenfeld Media, LLC
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 1-933820-29-2
ISBN-13: 978-1-933820-29-3
LCCN: 2015956988
Printed and bound in the United States of America
To Iris, Alma, Sella, and Segev. You make me brave.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
Scan the table of contents to identify a burning question (or questions) you (or
your team) currently have about your product users or potential users. Then
access the relevant chapter, read its premise, gather your team, roll up your
sleeves, and start going through the steps while completing the activities
described in them.
Who Should Read This Book?
The book has two groups of very different audiences. The primary audience of
the book is product managers and startup founders with no experience in user
research. The secondary audience is designers and researchers who are interested
in leaner ways of conducting user research.
Product Managers and Startup Founders
Product managers and startup founders have the biggest stake at bringing ideas
to life through new products and services. They see the bigger picture; they
mostly care about providing value to their users; and they are the ones with the
power and authority to make critical product roadmap decisions. Nowadays,
many of them understand that one of the most important keys to product success
and company growth is great design guided by a solid practice of learning from
users.
Designers and Researchers
While not targeting designers and researchers as a primary audience for this
book, they also have a keen interest in lean user research. Designers and
researchers want to do the following:
1. Make sure their stakeholders define exactly what research is for prior to
conducting it to eliminate waste and avoid drifting to irrelevant
explorations.
2. Focus first and foremost on learning as much as possible about a problem to
solve.
3. Prioritize observed user behavior over attitudes.
4. Implement fast, nimble techniques that are not necessarily perfect, nor
robust. Their stakeholders expect them to discuss needed research in the
morning, launch a study in the afternoon, and get results before 4 p.m.
5. Use jargon-free communication. For that reason, this book has been
scanned for jargon, and it uses plain language to educate non-researchers
about research.
6. Facilitate a shared understanding, which is the collective knowledge of the
team that builds up over time as the team works together. Shared
understanding is the currency of lean user research. Figuring out what
humans need, which products meet those needs, and what it means is a
team sport. It clarifies what different people in the team learn from research
and increases the team’s commitment to act on research results.
What’s in This Book?
The book is organized into nine chapters titled as questions you, the reader,
might have about your audience (or potential audience). Each chapter is a step-
by-step how-to guide that answers the question at stake with 1–3 user research
techniques:
1. Understanding the need: Chapters 1 through 4 guide you through
answering questions about needs, users, problems, and workflow. You
don’t have to have a product to answer these questions. They help you
explore the world around you before your product exists and figure out if
you have a good idea, who it is for, and provide you with insights about
what features it should have.
• Chapter 1 answers the question “What do people need?” with experience
sampling.
• Chapter 2 answers the question “Who are the users?” with interviewing.
• Chapter 3 answers the question “How do people currently solve a
problem?” with observation.
• Chapter 4 answers the question “What is the user’s workflow?” with a
diary study.
2. Figuring out the want: Chapter 5 is unique. It guides you through
answering the question “What do people want?” with Concierge MVP and
Fake Doors Experiments. It is a unique chapter because it will help you
with marketing your product rather than designing it, unlike the rest of the
chapters in this book.
3. Evaluating the design: Chapters 6 through 8 show you how to improve an
existing design (either a sketch, mockup, prototype, product structure, or a
fully functional product).
• Chapter 6 answers the question “Can people use the product?” with online
usability testing.
• Chapter 7 answers the question “Which design generates better results?”
with A/B testing.
• Chapter 8 answers the question “How do people find stuff?” with tree
testing, the first-click test, and the lostness metric.
4. The last chapter of the book answers a question about how to find
participants for research, which is the biggest bottleneck of research.
What Comes with This Book?
This book’s companion website ( rosenfeldmedia.com/books/lean-user-
research) contains additional content. The book’s diagrams and other
illustrations are available under a Creative Commons license for you to
download and include in your own presentations. You can find these on Flickr at
www.flickr.com/photos/rosenfeldmedia/sets/.
The book is also accompanied by the following:
• A dedicated YouTube channel with video content organized by chapter
(bit.ly/validating-youtube).
• An author’s website with resources and references organized by chapter
(leanresearch.co).
• Social media channels such as a Facebook page
(Facebook.com/leanresearch), Twitter (Twitter.com/tsharon), and
Instagram (Instagram.com/tsharon).
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is lean user research?
Lean user research is a discipline that provides insights into users, their
perspectives, and their abilities to use products and then gives this information to
the right people at the right time so that the research is invaluable for developing
products. Lean user research focuses on answering three big questions about
people: What do people need? (See Chapter 1.) What do people want? (See
Chapter 5.) Can people use the thing? (See Chapter 6.)
How is lean user research different than “regular”
user research?
Lean user research is mostly conducted by non-researchers who have burning
questions about their audience (or potential audience). They want to answer
these questions quickly, effectively, and on their own without hiring a
professional. Lean user research is not perfect and can be at times quick and
dirty, meaning some corners are cut. For example, since non-researchers might
not have very good control of their body language, lean user research calls for
more indirect approaches to learning. It values remote techniques over in-person
ones (see Chapters 7 and 8).
Does this book include everything I need to know
about user research?
No! This is a book for product developers and managers who are not skilled
researchers. Therefore, research techniques are described in a relatively
prescribed manner, skipping underlying factors, options, and dilemmas. The goal
here is to help non-skilled product developers to do their own far-from-being-
perfect-yet-effective research. If you want to learn more about research
techniques described in this book, there are multiple excellent resources
available. These are listed on the companion website at leanresearch.co.