We all think we have much bigger, deeper insight into our users than we actually do. If you think you understand your users you run the risk of overestimating what they want, you carry on bad habits, miss opportunities, don’t learn anything new or consider new ways to design. There are very few companies that have real design genius that can create products or sites without research.
Here are 3 Market Research tips for the rest of us:
• Be more concerned with what people do than what they say. Find ways to verify your research or customer feedback.
• When doing market research with customers, don’t call the customers that you like the most or are “just like you”. You will only confirm your own opinion and it won’t be a true measurement of all of your customer’s preferences or needs.
• You don’t have to spend lots of money outsourcing to a market research firm. In most cases it’s very difficult to act on a full report an outside team puts together. Simple, effective online surveys and targeted user testing are much more effective at answering specific user/design/or service decisions.
