Minimum viable research
description
Transcript of Minimum viable research
Minimum viable research
• Live music start up • 2nd biggest live music site after Ticketmaster• Fans track their favourite artists so they never
miss them live• 7 million fans discover concerts on Songkick
every month
The usual things
• Daily stand ups• Kanban board• Short iteration cycles• Prototypes as the guide for what we are building. • Sketching hacks with designers, PM’s and devs• Post it notes and writeboards everywhere.• Define and measure the success of everything
Product development inspiration
• Flow Interactive - UCD• Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden - Lean UX• Marty Cagan - Silicon Product Group• Tom Chi - Experience Lead at Google X• Jeff Paton - Dual track Scrum• Jake Knapp - Google Ventures• Eric Reis and Steve Blank - Lean start up
Product discovery Product delivery
How we make stuff at Songkick
Customer discoveryListen Experiment Execute
Steve Blank - Customer Discover• Is this worth working on?• Is there anyone out there who wants this?• If we could build a perfect solution to this
problem, would anyone buy* it?
Steve Blank circa 1978
Customer discovery
Identify customers
Meet with them
Synthesis all the data / stories /artefacts you
collected
Communicate what you learnt to the
team
Idea for a productarea of product feature
Is this worth working on? Is there anyone out there who wants this?
Customers behaviours, attitudes, goals, motivations, frustrations and pain points
Input Output
Some validation that this is worth working on and there are people out there who
want this.
Product discovery
Ideas / concepts
Hypothesis
Design experiments
Run experiments
Analyse results
Product / Biz GoalCustomer problem
Validated learnings go into the product delivery
backlog
Input Output
How can we make it work? What solution(s) can we provide? Will people be able to use them?
Product discovery: hypothesisIf we show bands a share on Facebook button after they have added a tour date
then bands will share their events to Facebook,
because they want to tell their fans about their shows.
Product discovery
Ideas / concepts
Hypothesis
Design experiments
Run experiments
Analyse results
Product / Biz GoalCustomer problem
Validated learnings go into the product delivery
backlog
Input Output
Product discovery: experiments
• Build the solution• In-product prototype• Live data prototype (outside product)• Clickable prototype• Flat mock up• Paper prototype• + lots of other creative experiments - no code
or interface needed
Product discovery
Ideas / concepts
Hypothesis
Design experiments
Run experiments
Analyse results
Product / Biz GoalCustomer problem
Validated learnings go into the product delivery
backlog
Input Output
Product delivery
Ideas
Validated product discovery ideas
It’s still a iterative process
Competitor product features
1000’s of users requesting the same
feature
etc.
Measure
Define success criteria (qual/quant/KPI)Prototype
Build
Ship
Prioritise improvements
Test
Refine
Inputs
How can we build this efficiently?How can we ensure what we are
building is of good enough quality?
Facebook share experimentIf we show bands a share on Facebook button after they have added a tour date
then bands will share their events to Facebook,
because they want to tell their fans about their shows.
Product discovery Product delivery
Right now as a UXD at Songkick this is how I spend my time
Customer discoveryListen Experiment Execute
Is this worth working on? Is there anyone out there
who wants this?
How can we make it work? What solution(s) can we provide?
Will people be able to use our solutions to solve the problem?
How can we build this efficiently?How can we ensure what we are
building is of good enough quality?
50% 20%30%
Get out the building
***Insert picture of me in London with backpack or map or something***
Stay in the building and hack your space
Shit everywhere
Server room
Free Window frames we found in the basement - lying around from office refurb projects
£300 - knock a hole in the wall, fit the frame and ordinary glass
£30 - Car window tint film (used by boy racers but also makes a pretty good budget two way mirror)
Free - mic I stole from the unused conference calling set up.
Meeting room Free - mic boom and screwdriver for over the shoulder mobile testing
Free - Old mini-hifi - donated by a Songkick developer and used as a pre amp to increase the volume of the sound from meeting room.
4 sets of headphones - £15 each but gradually upgraded to better sets (donated by people who work at Songkick)
4 way audio splitter £50 Maplin
Audio and video cables - Maplin £60
Observation room
Grand old duke of York
Songkick CEO Ian Hogarth
Get feedback from users as often as you can
Insights
We run 3 - 6 users every Wednesday
alot00
Peop
le
12
Hello! 0 people gets you 0 insights
3 websites, 2 mobile apps and Spotify appFan apps Data and
industryCrowd sourced
touring
Songkick.comiPhone appAndroid appSpotify app tourbox.songkick.com
detour-ldn.songkick.comdetour.songkick.com
3 websites, 2 mobile apps and Spotify appFan apps Data and industry Crowd sourced touring
Design team
QA
Support team
Train the product managers to run research sessions
• Product managers have natural empathy for customers, are great communicators and enjoy talking to people
• The more people that can run sessions the more feedback you’ll get
Always know exactly what you are trying to learn before you start
Agree what are the most important things to learn and uncover
• Write them down so you can refer to them later.
• Structure sessions so 1/3 to 1/2 are around customer discovery
• Rest of session is for feedback on prototypes and evaluating things we recently shipped.
Experiment with remote research tools
Self-Moderated remote tools
Survey tools Click and memory test tools
Analytics
Google Analytics and log file analysis
Few example of the ones we use regularly
Remote tools are just another data point• Sit along side our qualitative research
• Help us build a clearer picture of our customers
Hustling the recruit
Recruiting is hard
• We all know that the research we run is only as good as the people who we choose to participate
• Getting the recruit right is important!
• We always write a recruitment screener
Recruiting yourself - you know your customers better than anyone• Existing customers - mine support desk, Twitter
and Facebook
• Target customers - place ads where they already hang out• Post ads on Gumtree• Go to concert venues• Get people who work in music shops to help• Post on musician sites / Contact music colleges• Identify participants who can help with future
recruits
The 2 for 1 recruiting trick
Place ad on Gumtree
Survey on Polldaddy
Include recruitment
screener questions and larger survey
questions
Include specific date, outline how
the session works and offer a small incentive
5 participants for your next study
200 responses for your survey.
=
Feedback to the team as soon as possible
Get observers to help out with the analysis
How we get feedback to the team fast• Allow 30 mins between each session
• Get observers to help out with the analysis
• Tweak prototypes or the live site between sessions to learn as much as possible
• Write top 5's after each session and share them with the team right away
A little on how I do analysis• Record audio of sessions with Pearnote
• Record all the sessions with person in picture, audio and what happened on screen but rarely get a chance to watch them :(
• Want to figure out a way to make highlights video fast - WIP.
• Report back on research goals + hypothesis in 24 hrs.
• Sometimes afterwards I build customer storyboards to use in persona work later.
Customer storyboards
Touring lifecycle
Customer insights
Just do it *JFDI*
Minimum viable research• Even with a small team, a little cash and limited
time you can find a way to run research every week.
1. Get out the building2. Stay in the building and hack your space3. Get feedback from your target audience as often as you can4. Always know what you're trying to learn before you start5. Experiment with remote research tools to fill in the gaps6. Hustle the recruit7. Get feedback to the team as soon as possible8. Just do it
By making research easy to do regularly and turning around analysis fast, user research is now a key part of how we make product and strategic business decisions.
Your responsibility as people designing products and services is to step out of your own perspective and immerse yourself in the world of the people you are designing for.
The problem is out there, not at your desk.
Links to people who have inspired my approach to making productsFlow Interactive - UCDLUXR - Lean UXJeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden - Lean UXMarty Cagan - Silicon Valley Product GroupTom Chi - Experience Lead at Google XJeff Paton - Dual track ScrumJake Knapp - Design StaffEric Reis - Lean start upSteve Blank - Lean start up