In this lecture, Poornima covers best practices for identifying who customers are, creating personas, and conducting customer interviews.
You can watch the lecture here: http://youtu.be/MdAyEMPq4cs
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Lecture 9: Customer Discovery
1. Duke ECE 490L: How to Start New Ventures in
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Poornima Vijayashanker
poornima@femgineer.com
Jeff Glass
jeff.glass@duke.edu
Akshay Raut
ar118@duke.edu
1
2. Review
Duke ECE 490L
• More on positioning!
• Digging into the Competitor
• Horizontal vs. Vertical Market
• Substitutes
• Secondary Markets
• Point Tool vs. Integrated Solutions
• Customer Discovery
2
7. Duke ECE 490L
Myth of the omniscient founder.
Supplemental Reading: The Steve Jobs Way
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8. Duke ECE 490L
Customer Discovery Validation Customer Creation
Business/Company
Formation
Early Adopter
Pricing
Product
Distribution
Mainstream Adopters
Money for Marketing
Market Research
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9. Duke ECE 490L
Customer Discovery Validation Customer Creation
Business/Company
Formation
Early Adopter
Pricing
Product
Distribution
9
12. Duke ECE 490L
Mental models give you a deep
understanding of people’s motivations
and thought-processes, along with the
emotional and philosophical landscape
in which they are operating.
Supplemental Reading: Mental Models
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14. Duke ECE 490L
Understand the differences to bring
clarity to design and product
implementation.
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15. Benefits of Mental Models
Duke ECE 490L
• Confidence in your design: guide the design
of the solution
• Clarity in direction: make good user and
business decisions
• Continuity of strategy: ensure longevity of
vision and opportunity
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18. Case Study: Frank Gehry Disney Hall
Duke ECE 490L
• Disney Hall: think about how
people listen
• Worked closely with acoustician
to produce BIG and small sounds
• Conductor thinks about on stage
• Musician’s relationship to the
room
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25. Purpose of Mental Models
Duke ECE 490L
• Validate ideas and match them to needs of customers
• Mental models capture
• Cognitive intent
• Emotions
• Social and culture traits of a concept
• Experience Strategy = Business Strategy + UX Strategy
• Jesse James Garrett
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29. Duke ECE 490L
Teach yoga classes.
Take attendance.
Schedule instructors.
Ask students for payments.
Owns or manages studio.
Performs back office tasks or business
partner does.
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31. Duke ECE 490L
Teach yoga classes 1-1.
Teach yoga classes at a studio.
Teach yoga classes in corporations.
May teach full-time or part-time.
Take attendance.
Ask students for payments.
Travel to teach.
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33. Duke ECE 490L
Personas are user profiles that
help design and other teams such
as sales and marketing get more
useful products into the hands of
customers.
Supplemental Reading: Getting Your Startup Team to Understand Your
Customer, About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design
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34. Personas Benefit Other Teams
Duke ECE 490L
• Marketing
• Develop positions based on personas
• Sales
• Communicate how product will meet needs of customers
• Engineering
• Understand importance of building not for themselves but
for the customer by understanding customer’s needs
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35. Personas Benefit Other Teams
Duke ECE 490L
• Focus on end goals & life goals
• what a person wishes to accomplish
• why a person wishes to accomplish something
• Create Segments
• task based: people who do similar things but don’t necessarily buy the same
product
• e.g. teens & seniors are both “movie-goers”
• Avoid traditional market segment traps
• list distinguishing behavior
• group behavior
• name groups
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36. Avoid Traditional Marketing Segment Traps
Duke ECE 490L
• List distinguishing behaviors: Sketch out all
the ways many types of individuals might
behave
• Group the behaviors: study these behaviors
and put them into groups
• Name the groups: assign provisional labels
to the groups
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41. Duke ECE 490L
Data Technique Uses
Preferences
Opinions, likes, dislikes
Survey
Focus Group
Mood Boards
Preference Interview
Customer Feedback
Visual Design
Branding
Market Analysis
Advertising Campaigns
Evaluative
What is understood or accomplished
with a tool.
Usability Test
Log Analysis
Search Analysis
Customer Feedback
Interaction Functionality
Screen Layout
Nomenclature
Information Architecture
Generative
Mental environment in which things
get done
Non-Directed Interview
Mental Model
Diary
Ethnography
Contextual Inquiry
Navigation & Flow
Interaction Design
Alignment & Gap Analysis
Contextual Marketing
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48. Interview Checklist
Duke ECE 490L
• How many of each audience segment to select
• Demographics to select, if applicable
• A qualification questionnaire for recruiters to use
• Questions to make certain that the candidate is able to
carry on a long enough conversation
• A schedule with available interview appointments
• A list of qualifying candidates
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49. 6 Rules for Mental Models Interviews
Duke ECE 490L
1. Behaviors and philosophies, not product preferences
2. Open questions only
3. No words of your own
4. Follow the conversation
5. Not about tools
6. Immediate experience
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50. Open-Ended Questions
Duke ECE 490L
• Elicit more info
• compared to yes/no
• Don’t bias answers
• doesn’t distract their thinking
• Let’s people direct answers to what they
think is important
• “Tell me more...”
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51. Examples of Open-Ended Questions
Duke ECE 490L
• How did you do that?
• How did you actually get that info?
• So is that’s one of the things you’re doing right now?
(Encouraging him to tell me more.)
• How do you keep up to date on the latest?
• Can you mention a couple of examples?
• Can you tell me…what are your next steps?
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56. Duke ECE 490L
Type of Task Definition
Task
a phrase setting an action or step to accomplish
something.
Implied Task
a not-so-clear phrase implying an action “Every
class students come in and we need to check
them in."
Third-Party Task
a phrase that mentions a task someone else does
“My front desk person checks students in.”
Philosophy
a phrase stating a belief of why tasks are done a
certain way “Taking attendance should be fast and
easy.”
Feeling
a phrase describing a person’s feelings “When all
students are checked in I know classes run
smoothly.”
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57. Duke ECE 490L
Interest Level Definition
Preference
a phrase stating a person’s likes or dislikes “I
don’t like asking students for money right
when they check-in.”
Desire
a phrase stating what the person wants “I wish
students would just pre-pay for classes.”
Expectation
a belief that something will happen “I think
students will know how to pre-pay for
classes.”
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58. Duke ECE 490L
Quote Task Type of Task
“I need to stay organized to keep
my business on-track.”
Would feel business is going well
if they were more organized.
Desire
“I take attendance before each
class.”
Takes attendance. Task
“Tracking attendance and letting
students see it keeps them
honest about paying on time.”
Believes taking attendance
keeps students honest.
Feeling
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61. Duke ECE 490L
Tasks
What customers do that
you might want to design a
solution for.
Desire, Feelings,
Preference, Expectations
Characterizes level of need.
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65. Duke ECE 490L
Track
Attendance
Inform Students
about Membership
Status
Take Payments
Task: Takes attendance before classes.
Task: Informs students they are expired.
Task: Teaches students yoga.
Desire: Get paid on time to stay in business.
Desire: Students would pre-pay.
Preference: Doesn’t like asking students
to pay right when they check-in.
Task: Takes payments from students.
Desire: Wants to teach more.
Preference: Likes interacting with students.
Preference: Doesn’t enjoy doing
mundane business tasks.
65
75. Review
Duke ECE 490L
• More on positioning!
• Digging into the Competitor
• Horizontal vs. Vertical Market
• Substitutes
• Secondary Markets
• Point Tool vs. Integrated Solutions
75