Story 1. This guy had been working for over 25 years in his company. He was very afraid of talking to people. His fears made him very laid back at the beginning, but then I think he had a great attitude in terms of listening, learning and on thinking of the implications those conversations had. After 8 interviews or so, we could notice the concept we were testing was not strong enough as a key differentiator. We understood that the innovation was not on the device we were thinking about but on the content it would provide. It led us to leave the project aside and focus on things related to content. At the end, he told me "Do you know what's the most interesting thing about talking to people? It's that you discover things you never thought about" - And I said, emotionally "Precisely!"
Story 2. This was another guy. A very smart and experienced guy as well. He wanted to join the interviews as he cares about his product. We started listening to our interviewee (and potential target user). She started telling how she gets inspiration for her work, which belongs to the creative food industry. Our interviewee explained how traveling, reading, trying new flavors, talking to people helps her create better products...
Suddenly, the product manager said “Perfect! We have the right tool for you!” And the conversation turned more interesting. Our interviewee started talking more about the tool, how it should be, what it could do, that it should be an app etc. etc. At the end, when I asked “how would you use it?” the answer was “well…it’s hard for me to imagine myself using this…but it’s cool…you should keep stuff this” (she also showed us she only had 2 apps in her phone)
Both stories led us to refocus our projects. One had a focus on learning. The other a focus on selling. Selling our ideas while doing research for discovery is not a good idea. In fact, it’s a really bad idea. People will turn defensive ("I don’t want to buy anything") or patronizing (“oh it’s great, love it! but I would not use/buy it”). People will try to be nice with us and our product as opposed to being honest, so that we can learn and improve.
I’ve experienced many types of research. Some of them are the ones I used to call “ass-saver” research. Some others are revealing and lead to discovery (or more explorative research). Both happen in real life and it all relates to the type of culture we are working at.
This reminds me of an article I just read from Tim Brown, "analytical cultures tend to start with answers. Creative ones start with questions" I’ve been part of both types of cultures and I still think we need to find balance between both.