Why Embracing DIY User Research Sets You Up For Success
The questions that keep you up at night are part and parcel of the creative process.
I have joined CreateFuture with a background that is both agency and in-house. As such, I like to think that I can put my “client hat” on when I examine a brief. Being a marketing leader myself has helped me question a brand, proposition or experience challenge with more affinity. I have learned that no matter how well-defined or well-funded a project is, there will be questions that keep you up at night as you move from ideation to production, to putting it out into the world to fly on its own.
Many of the clients who come to us are under a lot of pressure. They are wanting to differentiate their brand and push their offering, develop content that is genuinely valuable to their customers in a world of churn and low attention span, and create experiences that will delight, build loyalty and deliver results.
We never forget that they put themselves on the line to pitch for ideas and budgets, and that is no small feat. They do it because they have bold ambitions and strategic objectives to deliver. However, they’re not immune to the worries that affect all creative work. I never was.
Does the target audience even want this?
Will it make a difference?
Will we be able to deliver it?
How do we know we’re not investing in an idea that doesn’t have legs?
These are the sort of questions that would live rent-free in my head, even as I pushed on confidently to the finish line.
Follow the questions that lead to other questions, they will set your project up for success.
When we onboard a new project, there’s a good reason we always start with an ‘Explore’ phase at CreateFuture. It is an important part of our quest to develop a solution for a real problem that our client is facing.
It allows us to really interrogate the brief and firm up the parameters of the challenge to tackle through a rigorous design thinking process. It also puts what everyone is really thinking and feeling about the task at hand front and centre: What are the hopes and fears? What are the assumptions? What are we really trying to achieve. What is the brief behind the brief?
We then deep dive into a research phase - including stakeholder, user and customer interviews - as quickly and early as possible. We know that a key factor to the success of a project is to face existing assumptions head on. It’s critical for us to collect all the helpful insights and questions that are floating around the client team, and also to get under the skin of the customer/user we’re trying to reach and influence.
Balancing desk research and qualitative interviews is a great way to do this. It can help you develop important insights that will shape the project throughout. This aligns the team on; what we’re trying to achieve and why, where are the spaces for opportunity, and what the insights are that will help us along the way and hold us accountable. Augmented with some focused desk research, this phase really helps us stress-test some of the early beliefs and ideas around what the project is trying to accomplish and how to get there.
Don’t give in to the temptation to ideate before you’ve refined your hypothesis.
Questioning your hypothesis in this way does not have to be a drawn-out or expensive process. In fact, we often spend only a few days to two weeks on this stage, depending on the size of the project.
For some clients, it may feel strange to take stock and challenge a brief at the beginning of a collaboration. The temptation to jump into creative ideation right away will be high. But it’s a worthwhile investment to help build a shared understanding and vision, really narrow the focus on how a challenge can be tackled in the most meaningful way, and to empower the teams involved in the sprint about the rationale behind the approach.
In fact, if you want to avoid costly mistakes, such as:
Going too far down the road of developing an idea that only solves the problem in a superficial way
Not targeting the right users within a broader customer segment
Launching in a space where it does nothing new
Deciding on ideas that aren’t in line with the timing/resources allocated…
Then it is critical to test your hypothesis early. This is something that everyone can take value and build confidence from.
Embrace your inner DIY researcher to find, analyse and share helpful insights.
You don’t need to be a research ‘wunderkid’ to find out valuable insights for setting your project up for success. Here are a few practical steps we usually take and that you, or someone on your team, can copy if you want to dip your toes in DIY research:
Question your brief, what are you really trying to accomplish beyond the obvious?
Which questions come naturally to you about things you’d need to find out?
Which questions would help you validate or invalidate your assumptions?
Are there any team members, or users/customers you could interview?
Set up some conversations, thinking about the right profiles to talk to.
You can think about some incentives to reward the time they give you.
Follow a discussion guide, but keep it informal - active listening is important.
Leave room for silence or for thoughts that lead to other thoughts.
Have someone with you to take notes or use Otter to scribe the calls.
Take the time to debrief after each conversation, what have you learned?
Why does it matter in the context of your project challenge?
Practice sharing the insights from your DIY interviews with other team members.
If it’s clear in your mind and you can explain it to a 5 year old, it’s important to share.
If there’s things you’re still not sure about, these are important to share as well.
Is there anything that you need to research more thoroughly?
Where can you look for data and insights that would help you go further?
How can you refine the focus and scope of your challenge going forward?
Everyone likes to say that there’s no such thing as a stupid question. But in practice, many of us are afraid to address some of the obstacles we encounter, like information we find that goes against previously held beliefs.
Some of the best creative leaders are not afraid of embracing ambiguity and self-doubt in a healthy dose. They’re curious and find it worthwhile to challenge how to deliver the best work by learning from their own stakeholders, team members, users and customers early on. We have a sign in our studio that says, “I don’t know, and that’s OK.” This attitude really sets the collaboration on the right path to solve a real problem. It also helps keep things fun and engaging along the way.