Collecting Actionable
Customer Insight
B O B B O E H R I N G E R , D I R E C T O R O F S T R AT E G Y, E L S E V I E R
C A R O L R I G H I , U X C O N S U LTA N T
What’s the Advantage
of Customer Discovery?
• If you don’t address a customer need, you don’t have a
product or service to sell
• Validate a product concept to determine whether investment is
appropriate
• Gain a clearer picture of how your product / service can and
should more impactfully support your customers’ workflow
• The purchasing and adoption decision process is influenced
by the customer, NOT your internal staff
What Stages of the Product Development Cycle
Are Most Dependent on Research?
 Idea Generation
 Business Case
 Product Testing / Design Refinement
Possible Impediments
 Lack of funding
 Lack of buy-in / acceptance on the part of key stakeholders

Ensure that everyone is on the same page and wants to move forward with being a datadriven organization
UX versus Market Research
 Although both strive to learn about customer wants and needs, they go
about it differently, resulting in different types of data
Typical Market Research Typical UX Research
Large samples
Small samples
What people say
What people do
Focused on Opinions About a
Product
Focused on How They Use a
Product
Opinion based
Observation based
Content used by permission of Gina Bhawalkar, Scottrade
Key Components of a Successful Research Plan
 Clearly defined objective
 Targeted customer sample(s)
 The right methodology
 Questions that get to meaningful, predictive data
 Analysis – interpretive and contextual
Clearly Defined Objectives
 What is your overall goal?
 What questions do you need answered?
Targeting Customer Samples
 Define target audience
 Segment as appropriate
 Evaluate your ability to reach your target
 Determine target sample size
Methodology
Qualitative
Provides narrative color and context;
smaller sample
Advantages
 Great complement to
quantitative
 Offers more detail and context
Limitations
 Can be costly
 Because samples are smaller,
generalizations can not be
formally made
 Unless themes emerge, data
can be complex to analyze
Quantitative
Provides larger scale; more statistically relevant;
typically used in latter stage of research
Advantages
 Findings can be used to make
assumptions
 Fairly easy to analyze results
 Cost efficient
Limitations
 Limited context
The Best Research is a
Multi-Step Process
Understanding
Of Customer
Workflow
Formulate
Hypotheses
What Pain
Will You
Address?
Crystallize
Product Concept
Test Hypotheses
Shape
Business
Case
Good Questions = Good Data
Discussion Guides
 Questions should align with objectives
 Avoid questions that ask customers to predict what they
might do; the only thing that predicts future behavior is
past behavior
 Ask questions about current and past behavior
 Ask the “why” behind a response as appropriate
 Develop questions with an eye toward how data will
reported
Good Questions = Good Data
Surveys
 Questions should align with objectives
 Select your questions judiciously; fewer is better
 Craft and pilot questions
 Too many open-ended questions will typically decrease
response rates; multiple choice/scenario questions can
get to similar data
 Develop questions with an eye toward how data will be
reported
Analysis: Going Beyond Data
 Straight data reporting is of limited use
 Identify common themes
 Findings should ultimately answer key business questions
 Organize findings in a way that tells a compelling story;
“package” your data in a way that resonates with your
audience
 Including verbatims can add credibility
 Once product is defined and designed, UX can inform all
aspects of product development
Moving Beyond the Business Case
Understand customer
conceptual models
Test the prototypes
Create
low-fidelity prototypes
Flesh out the
detailed design
Test the
detailed design
Document styles,
Templates,
conventions
About the Presenters
 Bob Boehringer
 Bob Boehringer has been involved in developing marketing
strategies for twenty years. He’s been involved in customerfacing strategies throughout the span of his career, including
marketing campaigns, branding initiatives, longitudinal
customer pulse studies and product research. He is currently a
Director of Strategy, Educational Digital Solutions, for
Elsevier.
About the Presenters
 Carol Righi
 Carol Righi hold a PhD. in psychology and is a professional
human-computer interaction designer and researcher. Carol
has close to 20 years of consulting experience, including a stint
for IBM Global Services. Carol currently runs her own User
Experience consulting company, CarolRighi.com.
 Carol’s publications can be found at:
http://carolrighi.com/about_pubs.htm