UX for Lean Startups

Chapter 2. The Right Sort of Research at the Right Time

In this chapter:

• Learn which research is right for your product at every phase of its lifecycle.

• Get tips about some unusual research methods that will save you time and money.

• Understand what you’re almost certainly doing wrong when you’re talking to users.

I get a lot of startups and entrepreneurs who come to me wanting to “do more user research.” While it’s great that they want to do the research, it’s unfortunate that they don’t have any idea about what kind of research they should be doing. While the last chapter covered the sorts of research you should do for early validation of an idea, let’s talk about some other research techniques.

There are hundreds of different ways to collect information about your users. Some of them would be useful for you to do right now. Some would be a giant waste of money. Do you know the difference?

Figure 2-1. Here are a few types of research. Think you know which is right for you?

Of course, this is a problem that is experienced only by product owners who actually want to do research in the first place. I just as frequently hear people say something along the lines of, “Oh, we don’t have time to do user research.”

Well, guess what, genius? If you don’t have time to do user research, you’d better make time to fix your product once you’ve built it wrong, because I guarantee that is what’s going to ...