Be Less Zombie

17Working with Customer ‘Progress’ Insights

Do you make awesome products or awesome users? Your answer changes everything.

Careful customer observation and interviewing can reveal the underlying units of progress that matter most to customers. Then it's possible to create a linear narrative that shows two things: the overall progress a customer is trying to make in a specific context, and the individual steps of progress he/she is trying to make along the way.

Here's a real-life example that formed part of a TEDx talk that I gave in the UK called, ‘The Secret Life of Great Ideas.’¹

When I was 15 years old, I stabbed the palm of my left hand trying to separate two frozen burgers. Home alone, I dropped the burgers and three simultaneous thoughts went through my mind: Ouch! That's a lot of blood! Have I just given myself mad cow disease? (This was the height of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease crisis in the UK.)

© Elvin Turner.

So we have a specific context: a teenager at home alone with a bleeding, possibly fatally infected hand. Perfect. Kind of.

What progress do I want to make in that context? Stop the bleeding, stop the pain, and understand my chances of dying from CJD (come on, I'm a teenager, we gotta have some dramatics in here!).

What solutions are available to me in that kitchen context? Paper towels? Dish cloth? Band Aids (or plasters as we call them in the UK)? Band Aids ...