ERNESTO SIROLLI - TEDTalk:  SHUTUP AND LISTEN

• You cannot substitute your own viewpoints for that of the customer
• Designers whom design for themselves often have a market size of one
• Many times your assumptions are later found to be incorrect

• Customers may not be aware of all of the issues impacting them or they may have difficulty in trying to communicate them to others.

• Observing customer difficulties in attempting to use existing products or services  can provide great insights to resolving unmet needs

• Quite often, customer product usage or purchase decisions are influenced by their cultural environment or social norms.

• Example: Japanese customers favored exotic cell phone styling over drop reliability because, in their culture, they held themselves responsible for damage caused by drops. This market was willing to accept that tradeoff.
  

• Interviews are much more complex that they seem
• Interviewees should not be interogated, but instead asked to tell stories
• The objective is to identify the emotions related to their customer journey
• It is important not to influence interviewees with leading questions

• To better relate to specific customer segments, representative personas are created based on common patterns from the observational research
  

• Personas are used as sounding boards when designing solutions

• One of the best ways to understand where customer needs are not being met is with a customer journey map that chronicles a customer's end to end emotional journey as they progress through the current process.

• Issues that cause dissatisfaction should be addressed, while those that create delight should be institutionalized.

• A journey begins with a core backbone (top line below) done at a very high level. Each step can be further drilled down to address the specific sub-tasks and objectives for each step.

Contact us to help lead your organization in the practice of observational research