A guide to Lean UX (User Experience) customer research, persona development, and how to be sensitive to cognitive biases.

1. Customer Research
&
Persona Development
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

2. “Life is too short to design & build
something that no one wants”
- Ash Maurya
LEAN USER EXPERIENCE
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

3. Mantra: You are not the user.
Only through research can we uncover
people’s pain, needs, and goals, in
context.
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

4. Why Customer Research?
“Insights about your customers or users
were never discovered sitting at your
fucking couch”.
- me
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

5. Malkovich Bias
The tendency to believe that everyone uses
technology the same way you do.
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

6. Personas, WTF?
• Personas are an archetype of your actual,
validated customers based on research
• Personas are not a sheet of paper
• (Just) making personas up is useless
• BUT – creating persona hypotheses gets the
ball moving… to do research
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

7. “Personas are to Persona Descriptions
as
Vacations are to Photo Albums”
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

8. My bullshit customer insights graph
People
0 Insights
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

9. My bullshit customer insights graph
12
People
The most striking truth of this curve is
that zero users give zero insights
0 Insights Lot
s
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

10. “Your responsibility is to step out of your own
perspective, to really exercise empathy and
completely immerse yourselves in the point
of view, and the psychological state, of the
person your hoping to design a solution for”
- me
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

11. Lean Principles
• Context First
• Hypotheses, Not Requirements
• Opinions = Guesses
• Visualize your work
• Validate customer needs
• Reduce cycle times
• Last responsible moment
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

12. Will Evans | @SemanticWill

13. HOW TO DO IT
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

14. Before Interviews
• Identify who you interviewing
• Articulate customer hypotheses
• Craft a topic map for your sessions
• Write down your prompts
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

15. 9 Keys to Customer Research
1. One at a time
2. Always pair interview (if you can)
3. Introduce yourself
4. Record the conversation
5. Ask general, open ended questions to get people
to open up
6. Ask questions around the problem space “Do you
often encounter a problem like X?
7. Then ask: “Tell me about it…”
8. Listen more than talk
9. Separate behavior from narrative
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

16. Guidelines
• It’s about empathizing. Listen, even when
people go off topic
• Context is King – document it, and make
sure the context of research maps to that
of problem space
• Start from the assumption that everything
you know is wrong
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

17. You need to gather:
• Factual information
• Behavior
• Pain points
• Goals
You can document this on the persona validation board
As well as…
Photos, video, audio, journals…document everything
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

18. During the interview
DO
Take notes
Smile
Ask open-ended Don’t
questions Talk about your product
Get their story Ask about future behavior
Shut up and listen Sell
Ask leading questions
Talk much
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

19. Ways to start
• Tell me about …
• How so …
• What are your thoughts on …
• Could you elaborate on …
• Give some examples of …
• What are your thoughts on …
• Tell me the last time you …
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

20. Will Evans | @SemanticWill

21. Caveat
Qualitative research cannot be used to
unequivocally prove or disprove a hypothesis
about the customer or solution.
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

22. Analysis
“We tend to project our own
rationalizations and beliefs onto the
actions and beliefs of others”
- Don Norman
So… be weary of these…
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

23. 5 Common Biases in Customer
Research
• Confirmation Bias
• Framing Effect
• Observer-expectancy Effect
• Recency Bias
• False Consensus
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

24. Confirmation Bias
Your tendency to search for or interpret
information in a way that confirms your
preconceptions or hypotheses.
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

25. Framing Effect
When you and your team draw different
conclusions from the same data based on
your own preconceptions.
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

26. Observer-expectancy
When you expect a given result from your
research which makes you unconsciously
manipulate your experiments to give you
that result
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

27. Recency Bias
This results from disproportionate salience
attributed to recent observations (your very
last interview) – or the tendency to weigh
more recent information over earlier
observations
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

28. Will Evans | @SemanticWill

29. False Consensus
The tendency for you to overestimate the
degree to which others agree with you.
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

30. Analysis
• Single customer storyboarding, and then…
• Multiple customer analysis
– Write all insights on post-its
– Affinity map into facts, behaviors, needs, goals
– Identify types of potential customers
– Name them
– Fill out the persona validation board
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

31. What next?
The point of the research is to seek insight
into user behavior, goals, and needs that
might be supported by the design of a
product or service.
so…
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

32. Demand Creation
• How will your customer segments hear
about your product?
• How does market type impact your
strategy?
• How much will it cost to acquire customers
using these strategies
• What does the lifetime customer value
need to be to justify these strategies?
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

33. Enough Theory!
“Insights about your customers or users were
never discovered sitting at your fucking desk”.
- me
Will Evans | @SemanticWill

34. Will Evans | @SemanticWill

35. Thanks!
Will Evans | @SemanticWill
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