Decoding Your Customers
Download as PPTX, PDF1 like295 views
The document discusses cognitive biases that affect customer feedback and decision-making in product development. It offers techniques to ask better questions and gather more accurate insights, emphasizing the importance of understanding customer behaviors and frustrations. The author, Cindy Alvarez, encourages proactive engagement with customers to refine product features and avoid common pitfalls in user research.
Decoding Your Customers
- 2. HAHAHA! Our brains play tricks on us
- 3. Cognitive biases make us bad at predicting what we’ll use, love, buy
- 4. So what can we do… when customers ask for features? to validate that our idea is something people might want?
- 6. Cognitive dissonance The uncomfortable feeling of holding two opposing ideas in our heads
- 7. Embrace the uncomfortable belief “Assuming X is true…”
- 8. Keep digging… “Tell me about why you did ____...”
- 9. Confirmation bias Looking for evidence to prove ourselves right (and forgetting or ignoring information that doesn’t)
- 11. Don’t ask yes/no questions “Tell me about how you are currently doing _______...”
- 12. Prompt for a story “If you already had ____, how would it make your life better?”
- 13. Anchoring The first piece of information we see irrationally biases what we think
- 14. Don’t show your product first!
- 15. Abstract up a level “How do you make sure things get done at work?” (not: “What project management software do you use?”)
- 16. Choice-supportive bias We defend decisions we’ve already made or things we do regularly (Related: “the IKEA effect”)
- 17. Ask procedural questions “How do you ___? What happens next? Who gets involved? How long did it take?”
- 18. Shift their perspective “If you had a new coworker, what advice would you give to help them be productive quickly?”
- 19. Projection bias We project that our future selves will behave like we are currently feeling
- 20. Ask about past, not future “In the past year, how many new tools, languages, or frameworks did you try out?”
- 21. Social desirability We say things that make us look good, rather than what is accurate (Sometimes on purpose; often not!)
- 22. Don’t ask questions that will be perceived like this!
- 23. Make it okay to be ‘imperfect’ “Last month, how many times did you drive more than 5km over the posted speed limit?”
- 24. Ask for the impossible “If you could wave a magic wand and change anything about ____, what would it be?”
- 25. But wait – Won’t I be biased in what I (choose to) hear?
- 26. Hindsight bias We tend to think ‘we knew it all along...’ (ignoring the changes, pivots, and mistakes along the way)
- 27. Write down your starting assumptions!
- 28. Work with a partner (to take notes, or second-guess you)
- 29. Share what you learn regularly (even if just with yourself!) I started out believing… Here’s where I was wrong… Here’s where I was right… Here’s where customers were really emphatic… Here’s what I’m going to ask/do next…
- 30. Thank you! I’m Cindy Alvarez Ask me questions (get the slides) – cindy@cindyalvarez.com Help me help Microsoft build better developer tools – bit.ly/oredev17