Quick Tips - October 3, 2007

Tips from the practice masters...

(Part III of III)

How should a technology company carry out ethnographic research, particularly field observation, to develop and refine its products? Julie Gulick and Ned Uber from MEDRAD, the leading maker of medical devices used in imaging procedures of the human body, regularly study the way their clients and yet-to-be clients carry out their assignments in catheterization labs and other hospital facilities. In a recent Product Strategy Network Roundtable, Gulick and Uber shared their insights and practical tips for benefiting from observational research. 

• Build rapport.

Bring a breakfast to the people you are going to observe; it helps establish goodwill and rapport. Dress right and prepare in advance, which helps to build credibility. Bring token gifts, like pens or a coffee table book of your home city. Gifts with high dollar values are generally inappropriate and frequently prohibited altogether. Your gift is a token of respect for the person being observed, not payment for a service. A lot of it involves making them feel important – your interest in understanding what’s important to them can help a lot. Explain what you’re trying to do. Once they understand why you’re looking for it, they’re usually very helpful. 

• Engage your subjects. 

If you tell people that your plan is to help them with a product eventually, they are usually happy to help. During the first round; tell them “thank you very much. Here’s a small gift. Would you be willing to talk to us again?” Very few people say no. That paves the way for a second round because now you know who you want to talk to again. Take notes from the initial observations, digest them, come back in the second stage with a set of ideas and say “here’s some of the ideas from the first round; we’d like to show you some of the concepts we came up with from the first round. Are you willing to look at these?”  

• Keep it generic. 

Soften the use of titles when introducing yourself. Tell them, for example, that you’re from marketing, that you work in new product development, and that you’re seeking their input. Don’t go into detail. Tell them your company is always looking to improve its products, that you would like to talk with them about how they use your product, and that you’d like them to share their experiences and thoughts about your products. Keeping your mission generic also avoids your becoming too helpful to competitors. Instead of saying “I’m on project team X and we’re going to develop a new Y that will be released in Z number of years,” say “we’re always going out to see our customers. It’s just part of our continuous improvement process; we like to be close to our customers and understand their challenges in working with our product.” 

• Use small cameras.

Ask the people you are observing if it’s okay to tape them doing a particular task, and don’t be obtrusive about recording it. If they say no, pack it up and show them it’s been put away because your credibility is very important. If it’s okay to tape, keep the camera on all the time, because pretty soon, people stop noticing. If you put it in their faces, they will never relax. But if it’s small and constantly running, it won’t draw their attention. Consider bringing two cameras, with one as a backup.

• Observe, but don’t intervene.

Through observation, you can develop ideas about what your customers stumble over, what puzzles them, and what workarounds they’ve developed. You are at the customer’s site to observe what they do, including what they may do wrong. Become a fly on their wall. Unless there is a real emergency or an urgent serious safety issue, resist the impulse to ‘help’ the customer by injecting yourself into their work or offering suggestions on how to use your product better. You will gain more valuable information by watching their struggles than by resolving them.

• Use your toolbox.

Have your observers draw a sketch of the room they’re in. It forces them to observe more closely and they end up seeing a lot more. Take photos of all the artifacts in the subject’s work area including Post-it notes on computer screens that people use to remind themselves of things. That can yield useful information about what you need to do to make your product work for them. Use a camcorder to capture the users’ actions. Interview them on tape and make verbatim transcriptions. You will frequently end up recording things without really knowing why at the time. But somewhere in the subconscious, it all fits together.

• Follow up with interviews.

Interviewing is a research technique that can be productively coupled with observation as long as you offer your subjects assurances that their responses will remain anonymous. Plan your interview and develop an interview guide to keep it focused. Center your interview on the customer’s needs, not on your product’s features. Talk about: what keeps them up at night? What are their biggest challenges? Where is their field going in the next five years?

This is part III of III in a series focusing on observational research. 

Part I: Making observational research work

Part II: Planning to observe customers

 

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