The Customer-Driven Playbook

Chapter 2. Formulating

In the previous chapter, we discussed the powerfully negative effect that unchecked assumptions can have on our product decision-making. The best way to remain objective about your assumptions is to write hypotheses that can be tested with customer feedback.

Jeff Gothelf, coauthor of Lean UX: Designing Great Products with Agile Teams, sums it up perfectly:¹

Expressing your assumptions [using a hypothesis] turns out to be a really powerful technique. It takes much of the subjective and political conversation out of the decision-making process and instead orients the team toward feedback from the market. It also orients the team toward users and customers.

A Great Hypothesis Focuses on the Customer’s Limitations, Not Your Own

Sometimes it can be difficult to separate our own internal or technical limitations from those of the customer. For example, we might believe that the lack of an effective search algorithm is causing customers to be frustrated.

We may construct a hypothesis that focuses on what we are lacking:

We believe that, because our search algorithm produces ineffective results, customers are unwilling to create an account on our website.

This inwardly focused hypothesis already biases us toward one solution (adjust the search algorithm so it produces better results). It doesn’t explore who the customer is, what they’re trying to do, and how poor search results affect them.

This hypothesis is ineffective in its ability to help us gain greater insight ...