FindingTheRightPeople_10Mar2011

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WhatWhereWhoWhenWhyHow

Finding the Right People 2 Portigal

Click to edit Master title styleAgenda

Finding the right people

• Introduction• Why focus on who?• What can go wrong?

• How to do it• Creative recruiting • Q & A

WHY

HOW


Click to edit Master title style

Introduction


Click to edit Master title stylePortigal Consulting is a bite-sized California firm that helps companies discover and act on new insights about their customers and themselves


Click to edit Master title styleI started my career in coordinating research, learning first-hand how critical planning and recruiting are to success in the field



LaunchWhat to

make or doRefine & prototype

Iterate & improve

Typical development lifecycle



LaunchWhat to


Iterate & improve

Take a fresh look at people

Where we work



Iterate & improve

Use existing ideas as

hypotheses

Where we work

LaunchWhat to




Iterate & improve

Where we work

LaunchWhat to


Is it working like we hoped?



Iterate & improve

History provides context to

explore new ideas

Where we work

LaunchWhat to




LaunchWhat to


Iterate & improve

Research requires people, regardless



Why focus on who?



Development

Synthesis

Ideation

Fieldwork

Everything follows from fieldwork


Click to edit Master title stylePutting the customer back in customer insights

You can’t have the insights without the customer

We focus a lot on the insights part of customer insights, but the customer part is truly foundational

Finding the very people you need for insights can become an afterthought on busy teams

Strive to put thought and decisions about who to talk to on equal footing early in the process

Competing for your attention:• Selling projects• Justifying methodology• Experimenting with methods• Identifying business questions• Identifying research questions• Fieldwork• Travel• Analyzing data• Client wrangling• Turning data into insights• Storytelling• Socializing findings• Inspiring diverse teams• Brainstorming• …Designing!


Click to edit Master title styleFirst you’ve gotta ask

There’s another set of reasons why recruiting people is challenging

• It’s awkward to put yourself out there

• It’s hard to get people to do something for you• People will be too busy• People will be too skeptical

• It’s even harder when you can’t offer an incentive

Most people are curious, and eager to be a part of something that contributes to progress.

It’s rare that anyone is asked to talk about any aspect of their lives in detail – it’s an opportunity that many are eager to have!


Click to edit Master title styleWhat can go wrong?


Click to edit Master title styleConsequences of recruiting failures or oversights

Pointless interviews waste time and challenge the credibility of the work• Person doesn’t really want to talk to you• They don’t have the desired relationship

with the product/brand

Epic FAILS can verge on dangerous• Hostile environment• Hostile individuals resulting from failure

to understand the purpose of the visit

Full Disclosure: It’s gonna happen• Sometimes it will go sideways due to

recruiting snafus… and that’s OK. This can lead to happy accidents!

• Mobile technology: the woman was much more comfortable texting and emailing than talking in person… the interview was like pulling teeth

• Riding lawnmower: the participant’s mower was out of commission – trashed, rusty and stashed in the corner of the lot

• Over the counter medication: deep in the projects of Baltimore, the participant’s procured the product in question from gang members who steal it from local businesses and re-sell on the streets


Click to edit Master title styleHow to do it


Click to edit Master title styleHow to do it

You need people who are going to provide useful data; people who will inspire you, and inspire your design team and clients

They must have the right relationship with whatever it is you’re studying, and they need to be good to spend time with

There are four key steps:

1. Establish relevant criteria

2. Write a screener

3. Find a recruiting partner/establish a recruiting strategy

4. Build rapport prior to interview


Click to edit Master title style1. Relevant criteria: How NOT to do it

Don’t simply take the client’s customer segmentation or personas and find those people

Don’t try to comprehensively represent all users and types of users of a product. It’s not an audit – be selective for quality not quantity

• Athletic gear: The archetypal persona the client design towards (brand hero) exists very rarely in the real world, and is better at inspiring marketing than informing design


Click to edit Master title style1. Relevant criteria: Relationship to product

What is the desired relationship to the product/service or brand? • Typical user• Non-user• Extreme user• Peripheral users• Expert user• Subject matter expert• Wanna-be user• Should-be user• Future user• Past user• Hater

There are interesting insights to be discovered from any of these depending on the business questions you are pursuing


Click to edit Master title style1. Relevant criteria: Relationship to product

Select a range of relationships• Find a rejecter or hater in order to

understand how they differ from the enthusiast

• Create contrast in your sample so you can see influencing factors you would otherwise miss

• Think about the sample as a thing to be designed, not “a” customer type to go after

• Build the sample as a palette to draw from

• Dog food: studied professional chefs of human food to understand adjacent trends related to food

• Portable computing: talked to people who are enthusiasts of the rival brand

• Financial instrument: equal weight given to people who did NOT choose the product


Click to edit Master title style1. Relevant criteria: Type of user

Which user groups should you consider? • There may be more than you think• Teams make assumptions that need

to be challenged• The myth of the primacy of the “end user”

Think about the whole system: the chooser, the influencer, the user

• Interesting things don’t happen in a vacuum

• Think about intersections

Considering and understanding this helps the team get a broader sense even prior to research who is affected by the product and who is being designed for

• Sporting goods: User groups included kids, coaches, parents, other team members, league officials

• Medical devices: User groups included nurses, pharmacists, bio-engineers, patients

• Baby products: User groups included Moms… but also Dads, other kids in the household, grandparents, friends and their kids, nannies/caregivers, gift-givers, and, of course, the ultimate end-user - babies!


Click to edit Master title style1. Relevant criteria: Context of use

Consider context and adjacent behaviors: owners and users of the same products will use them very differently and their needs will differ – neglecting to recognize this skews research findings

• What surrounds people will influence their use

• How people use and perceive the product/brand/service will make for very different interviews and insights

• Mobile devices: a person who commutes via public transport vs. a car-commuter

• Baby products: suburban Moms with SUVs vs. urban Moms who walk their neighborhoods

• Fitness equipment: Treadmill owners who are trying to lose weight vs. treadmill owners who are tri-athletes


Click to edit Master title style1. Relevant criteria: How many?

Anywhere from 6 to 72! It’s a balance of insuring a critical mass of data, covering the criteria you’ve established and operating under more tangible constraints such as time and budget

Contributing factors can also include• Regional differences in product use or

behavior• Number of segments of actual, expected

or desired users the team wants to cover• Number of client team members

interested in participating

• Lawnmowers: 72 households studied across 7 states and 3 European countries, to cover region, cultural differences and current products in use

• Home ambiance: 6 women covering a range of types of households, product use and odor challenges

• Over the counter medication: certain regions of the country use completely different forms of products to treat the same symptoms


Click to edit Master title style1. Relevant criteria: Demographics

• Gender• Age• Life-stage and lifestyle

• Married• Stage of family• Retirement• Not in the middle of a major life-

change (unless that’s of interest)

• Dwelling• Suburban – Urban – Rural – Town• Apartment – Condo – Single Family

home

• Race• Reflect the general or regional

population• Reflect the user-base

• Occupation• Not overlapping with any industry

directly or indirectly related to the client or the topic at hand

• Income• You probably want the person to be

unencumbered by socio-economic barriers to using the product. To put it bluntly, participants will need to have a comfortable enough income and life-situation that they will not be focused on talking to you about how whatever you are researching needs to be cheaper.


Click to edit Master title style1. Relevant criteria: The softer side

Whatever their relationship with the product/brand/service - you want the person to be engaged, have a point of view, care about the thing, and be articulate


Click to edit Master title style1. Relevant criteria: Create a briefing sheet

Sketch it out on whiteboard or paper; iterate

Visualizing it helps surface details and potential issues


Click to edit Master title style2. Write the screener

Screeners are very formal, linear documents, with several critical purposes

• Figure out if the person fits your carefully developed criteria

• Not letting details slip through the cracks… a critical tool in avoiding the kinds of failures we discussed!

• Preventing bias in the participant by not tipping your hand (which can affect the research)

• Convincing people to participate



There are ways to streamline this process

• Reuse previous ones (yours or the client’s)• Look for surveys on the web



Screeners have three main sections

• Introduction• Checking off criteria• Invitation to participate

Even if you aren’t going to use the screener, write the screener!


Click to edit Master title style2. Write the screener: Introduction

Give away a little bit but not too much


Click to edit Master title style2. Write the screener: Checking off criteria

Employ skip logic to guide recruiters; try to keep it straightforward


Click to edit Master title style2. Write the screener: Invitation

Lay it on thick!


Click to edit Master title style3. Find a recruiting partner

How to find them• http://www.bluebook.org/• Referrals

What matters about the recruiter?• Local• Database and methodology• Responsiveness• Flexibility• Creativity

Be specific about how to work with them• Establish the frequency of reporting to you• Give them tools that dove-tail into your process

http://www.bluebook.org/

http://www.bluebook.org/


Click to edit Master title style4. Build rapport with the participants

Connect prior to the interview: first by email and then by phone

• Friendly but professional tone• Assure them of the informality and

your objectives• Thank them profusely for their

participation• Ask for any special instructions or

anything you need to know• Baby will be napping• There will also be contractors in the home• Grandma will be around• Need to go through security to gain access• Has a go pick up kids right after the

interview


Click to edit Master title style4. Build rapport with the participants

Confirm, confirm, confirm! • Length of interview• Who is coming and when• VIDEOTAPING• What needs to be done to prepare (usually nothing!)• What they will be asked (and asked to do)


Click to edit Master title styleCreative recruiting



We tend to believe in working with recruiting professionals• Consistent process• Saves time• Lends professionalism• Layer of ethical protection (identity, privacy)

Our clients frequently lament the dated methods that recruiters employ, and we concur. There is room for innovation in recruiting. Try to find creative partners.

But what if you can’t use a professional recruiter?



Outside of the traditional method of working with a recruiter, there are other approaches

• Friends and Family/Social Network Recruiting• Snowball Recruiting• Craig’s List• Intercepts• Proactive Outreach• You can probably help us add to this list!

Pros and cons• Cheap but time-consuming• Quick but harder to control and manage (tempting to sacrifice process for

results)• Likely to find “pure” participants but they might be too close to you (talking

to yourself)



A book by Steve Portigal

The Art and Craft of User Research Interviewinghttp://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/user-interviews/

Lots more great tips coming soon!


Click to edit Master title styleWrap it up



One new thing I

learned today is…

I’ve got a tip (that you

didn’t cover) that works

well for me…Yeah, I’ve

got a question for ya…



Portigal Consultingwww.portigal.com

Steve @[email protected]

Julie [email protected]

Wyatt [email protected]

Thank you!

FindingTheRightPeople_10Mar2011

Design

Transcript of FindingTheRightPeople_10Mar2011