You should skip user research. It’s slow, expensive, and it disrupts the product development cycle. Go ahead and make decisions based on your gut, without any insights into how customers behave or how they react to your product design decisions. "Dev resources are never constrained,” said no one ever. In this talk, you’ll learn how to save your development team time (and frustration) by infusing user research early and often in your product development cycle. We’ll cover the latest tools and techniques which enable research to move faster and be less expensive, and we’ll help you make the case for why your team needs to prioritizing user research.

1. Get it right the first time
How research can speed up your roadmaps and
save you budget.

2. Advocates
Sponsors
In Kind
Supporters

3. Hello!
I’m AJ Davis, a user advocate
and product leader.
aj@metricrux.com | @AJDavis_ | AJ Davis on LinkedIn

4. Expectations

5. *Reality

6. “ I get very uncomfortable when
someone makes a design decision
without customer contact.
– Dan Ritzenthaler
Senior Product Designer at HubSpot

7. User Research
User research focuses on understanding user behaviors, needs,
and motivations through observation techniques, task analysis,
and other feedback methodologies.
Source: Usability.gov
aj@metricrux.com | @AJDavis_ | AJ Davis on LinkedIn

8. Save Money. Spend less development time going the wrong direction
and avoid annoying or scaring off customers.
Why prioritize research
make the case
1
Higher ROI. Doing research in the early-stage of product dev will have
a higher return on investment
2
Focus. Objectivity and measurement inform ruthless prioritization.3
Inspiration. Findings can inspire new directions and new audiences4
aj@metricrux.com | @AJDavis_ | AJ Davis on LinkedIn

9. Research methods
increase speed and lower costs
“What”
Understand what your
customers are doing today
and what problems you
can help solve.
▪ Interviews
▪ Observation
“How”
Assess the ways that
customers interact and
feel about the product.
▪ Surveys
▪ Interviews
“Why”
Evaluate why customers
respond the way they do to
the product experience.
▪ Remote usability
research
▪ Unmoderated usability
research
aj@metricrux.com | @AJDavis_ | AJ Davis on LinkedIn

10. ▪ Get your whole team involved
▪ Recruit from outside your friends and
family circle
Act on some insights other than your own.
Research tools
increase speed and lower costs
aj@metricrux.com | @AJDavis_ | AJ Davis on LinkedIn

11. ▪ Leading questions
▪ Revealing that you are personally invested in the
product
▪ Using the wrong methods to learn
▪ Collecting data you can’t use
Research mistakes
avoiding common missteps
aj@metricrux.com | @AJDavis_ | AJ Davis on LinkedIn

12. Exercise
aj@metricrux.com | @AJDavis_ | AJ Davis on LinkedIn
What three questions would you ask your users? Future users?

13. Q&A
aj@metricrux.com | @AJDavis_ | AJ Davis on LinkedIn

14. Advocates
Sponsors
In Kind
Supporters