Steve Portigal spoke at a BayCHI meeting which they recorded. His session is all about how they turn research data into ideas, which then get turns into sellable things. I suspect ‘research’ in general is something that could be amped up a bit in today’s startups which seem to be more reactive to customer comments / complaints than soliciting feedback. But I admit that I have a small sample size to base that on.

Here are the bits I found interesting. Some of them are out of chronological order as it took a couple train rides to listen as I had a nap more than once.

Misc.

  • Low hanging fruit solution: we saw this, so we built that
  • Turn data into insights, and insights into solutions
  • Use research to discover new things (about yourself and your customers) and then act
  • Transition points are where pain centers often reside
  • The Back of the Napkin
  • Level of fidelity of sketches / presentation tends to define the level of feedback you receive; high fidelity (type-o, brand colour), low fidelity (lots of conversation)
  • Don’t just throw existing stuff at new people, give them the guided tour
  • Part of the value of bringing people in partway through is their lack of insight

Turning field data into insight

  • Make sure you debrief at the end of the day
  • This data actually happened to someone, get their story and out there
  • Collaboratively present findings as a case study; give the highlights of the data
  • Go through each person / session. First one takes the most time
  • Get field data into a text source
  • Don’t record exactly what is going on. Record what is happening and what you think (as a researcher) about what is going on. (visually distinguish them somehow in your notes)
  • Does this turn into something interesting? Don’t know. It might
  • Note the difference between what could be done and what is done

  • Buckets for data should be solution agnostic Ideation

  • Objectives (new? same?) are a filter to what we are going to move forward with
  • Add ‘How can we’ to the beginning of ideas
  • Make a list of things that you could do acting on new insights
  • Do we want to ‘change’ the way people are doing? (challenge)
  • Or do we want to ‘support’ the behavior? (embrace)
  • Don’t skip to solution without a strategy
  • When you get stuck, think of the worst thing possible (End up jail…)
  • Oblique Strategies
  • It doesn’t matter if what you come up with is good or not, you are generating ideas
  • Facilitation is part of design research