Capturing Complexity, Building Empathy

Capturing Complexity, Building Empathy

1. Research will augment your work by giving you insight into customers´lives, and helping you develop empathy for them.

   • Evaluative research
   • Generative research
   • Market research
   • User research

2. Generating ideas for new products and services is fundamentally importante to the success of organizations.

   • Quantitative research is useful for understanding trends and getting a sense of what is going in.
     • In order to interpret numbers, you need a sense of the mechanisms at play.
   • Qualitative research is concerned with the qualities of an experience, situation, set of behaviors.
     • Focuses on process rather than outcomes
     • Ethnography is a qualitative approach to research focused on gaining a deep understanding of people.
       • Involves going into the homes / businesses of the people under study and spending time observing and talking to them.
       • First its about going out into the field.
         • Because of its roots in anthropology, formally trained ethnographers use social science theory and are particularly focused on cultural and contextual issues.

3. Doing a poor research:

   • Keep making the same mistakes with customers.
   • The functionality / usability of your products is excellent, but sales and usage are low.
   • Products are improved but seldom innovated.
   • Have a shelf of reports and nouns knows what's in them.
   • Research team is busy and spending money, but products don't seem to be getting any more successful.
   • The marketing and positioning of products is great but ultimately fail to deliver.

4. Research is successful when:

   • its treated as an organizational competency
     • Researches don't actually make products and services; whole organizations do that.
       • Truly effective research work exhibits two traits; its actionable and durable.
   • Research outcomes are both actionable and durable
   • Integrating research into the design and development process is another effective strategy.
   • Solid research deliverables exhibit three key characteristics:
     • They are clear and straightforward
     • They engage readers.
     • They tell stories.
   • Prototyping products and experiencia can also help build empathy with potential users.