Andrew Harder – The Seven Best Ways to Screw Up Your User Research [Mind the Product]

A seasoned Product Manager has experienced many product and process failures. Andrew Harder, Senior Research Manager at Ebay, spoke to Product Tank San Francisco about how to avoid screwing up your user testing.

1. Only Asking Usability Questions

Consider user needs and whether the product or feature actually solves for those challenges.

Andrew spoke about his experience at Nokia: throughout user testing their customers said that text input was very important, leading Nokia to dismiss the first iPhone. As time has shown, the keyboard didn’t matter that much because users loved the other features of the iPhone- making it a much more significant competitor than the user research had suggested.

Avoidance Tactic

Cast light on the whole gap between your customers and your strategy.

2. Testing to get Blessed

Testing must be an integrated part of the whole product process. It shouldn’t be an afterthought or a way to validate yourself.

Don’t enter a testing cycle with assumptions: your assumptions will almost always be wrong.

Avoidance Tactic

Test to get coached: use testing to experiment, learn, and iterate.

3. Confusing ‘Sample’ and ‘Population’

A sample can be biased, and is likely to be unrepresentative of the whole customer base. Be aware of stereotyping and customer segmentation in user testing, and avoid asking the wrong set of people the wrong questions.

Avoidance Tactic

Target your questions.

4. Freaking out About Leading Questions

Your job is to synthesise feedback and form a strategy based on trends and themes: don’t worry too much about individual bias. What users say and do are completely different.

Avoidance Tactic

Don’t delegate product direction to user quotes.

5. Rushing to Conclusions

Rushing to inaccurate conclusions is driven by uncertainty, and being uncomfortable with uncertainty. Be confident in the process and trust your team.

Avoidance Tactic

Trust the process.

6. Researchers (Only) Sharing the Results

It isn’t enough to just share data. Researchers must come to conclusions and have a point of view about their results.

Avoidance Tactic

Researchers have a point of view.

7. Presenting Everything

Don Norman is required reading for new designers. Andrew spoke about how he was inspired by Don, but counselled that his approach can appear sarcastic and negative. Researchers may hear a lot of user problems, but presenting them without critique and conclusions is unhelpful for the team and the company.

Avoidance Tactic

Critique, don’t complain.

In summary:

• Most talks about research are unrealistic.
• Screw-ups happen.
• Failing fast only works if you learn from the failure.
• Solicit open feedback from your partners.
• Use the learnings and feedback to develop faster as a product professional.

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