User Experience Innovation: User Centered Design that Works

Step 1: Find Lead Users

Lead users can be found in several ways. You may already know a few of them from your company's complaint hotline. Or you can find them via the Internet by looking for people who have created their own small improvements to your product. Or you will find them by looking through the logs of official e-mail to your company.

You can also use an agency to find suitable lead users, and you can even ask a professional facilitator with user experience background to do your preparations and to run the workshop. This may be a good idea, at least the first time, for learning the tricks, but it will also be more expensive.

Instead of seeing these users as menace to your company who spam your inboxes and hotlines, invite them for ...