Right Research, Right Value

When a team can't agree on what customers actually need, someone usually suggests a survey. Kim Goodwin has spent more than twenty years leading teams of product strategists, designers and design researchers, and she thinks a survey is the wrong place to start. It's fine for facts but poor at predicting behaviour, because people describe themselves the way they see themselves and don't notice many of their own habits.

You'll learn why research shouldn't be outsourced to an agency and why everyone on the team, executives included, should do at least three customer interviews. Kim explains how many interviews it takes before behavioural patterns show up and how to ask for specific stories and for the why behind them. Using PatientsLikeMe, Best Buy, United Airlines and AT&T, she then shows five ways this helps marketing, from the value proposition to customers' own language for copywriters.