Consumer Research in Design Thinking: Understanding User Needs and Behaviors

Posted on May 14, 2024 in Other subjects

OBSERVATION

Main Goal

WE WANT TO:

  • Confirm our assumptions about our target group, profiles, etc. Target audience can be adjusted or changed (return to the previous stage for adjusting the design challenge).
  • Verify the hypotheses/assumptions included in our design challenge that can be validated due to the data collection and analysis of this stage.

Main Goals for the Design Team

  1. Take an empathetic approach with the target user and empathize with their life. Take a closer look at people to try to be experts and better understand their needs.
  2. Be immersed in the user’s environment and daily life so the team can get a personal view of what is really needed.
  3. Observe, engage, interact, and empathize with the users to have a deeper understanding of them.
  4. Show them the ideas of the problem statement and the design challenge to: assess their reactions, feedback, pros and cons, opinions, etc.
  5. Gather consumer feedback, analyze and interpret it to generate new actionable customer insights and new ideas that are clear actions to take or paths to follow within the design process.
  6. Fine-tune, amend, or redefine the problem statement and the design challenge.
  7. We can conduct further data collection with new hypotheses to test to fine-tune the problem statement and the design challenge.

Researching and Observing

Consumer research is a systematic practice of identifying the preferences, attitudes, motivations, buying, and using behavior of the targeted customer towards your service and your brand.

An organization that has an in-depth understanding of the customer journey and their decision-making process is most likely to:

  • Understand consumer needs – better match consumer preferences, desires, and aspirations.
  • Increase consumer interest in that organization and thus the purchases – promote a new product or service of that organization more efficiently.
  • Enhance the organization’s innovation and improve the features of a product or service of that organization.

To fully understand and meet customers’ needs and wants, it is necessary to:

  • Approach them as buyer personas instead of customers and users.
  • Analyze their emotions, fears, feelings, desires, aspirations, opinions, moods, habits, etc., rather than their needs.
  • Fully understand what and who is influencing and affecting them and how, where, and when they can change and be persuaded due to our actions.

Why is Consumer Research Important to Aiding Design Thinking Throughout its Entire Process?

Because:

  • It mitigates the risks of designing and developing a service that users don’t need or want and a service that doesn’t totally fulfill consumer expectations.
  • It allows designers to validate and prioritize certain service features and components to help define a viable and appealing product/service.
  • It gives the designers hard evidence which they can use to align and attract stakeholders and avoid lengthy discussions because it uses real data to strongly support their design decisions.
  • It helps to validate their emerging questions, doubts, hypotheses, and assumptions during the design process.

Consumer Research Applications

  • Idea/changes/service components/prototype testing: It helps the design team to test new ideas, concepts, and prototypes with the current and potential audience.
  • Effective consumer communication: It helps to tailor the information for increasingly demanding and differentiated consumers.
  • Effective service campaign evaluation: It helps to measure the success of the different promotions of the service.
  • Thought leadership: It positions the design team as experts in its field.

Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

To build empathy with consumers means to put yourself in their situation and see a problem/challenge from their point of view.

  • You can better understand their experiences and motivations, understand their context, uncover hidden needs, and hear their honest and free feedback.
  • You can internalize their needs and desires and thus develop a thorough understanding of the potential users.
  • It facilitates the interaction with the consumer.

What Kinds of Data Do I Need to Collect and Analyze from My Consumers/Users/Personas?

1) Collecting and Assessing Consumers’ Perceived Problems and Desires About This Service

This involves measuring the real expectations and desires of changes in that service.

For each targeted segment:

  • What do consumers expect from this service?
  • What do consumers think are the problems of the current service and its offering?
  • What service components do consumers think are vital?
  • What’s important for them within this type of service?
  • What service components do customers wish to be included in this service?

2) Collecting and Assessing Consumers’ Influences

What influences consumers to choose between various options (brands, services, business models, etc.)?

  • Personal factors: Demographics (age, gender) + geographics (address, urban/rural, climate, etc.)
  • Psychological factors: A consumer response to a marketing message depends on their psychographics (lifestyle, attitudes, opinions, etc.)
  • External factors: Family, friends, education level, social media, income
  • General trends: (e.g., megatrends, market trends, technology trends, etc.)

3) Collecting and Assessing Consumers’ Perceptions

What consumers think and how they feel about various existing alternatives (brands, products, etc.)

  • Perceptions about the service performance and its attributes of different competitive brands (positioning consumers’ perceptions about service performance)
  • Perceptions about all competitive brands from the different targeted services (positioning maps)

4) Collecting and Assessing Behavioral Variables of Sought Benefits

  • Functional value: Benefits and costs related to service performance.
    E.g., attributes of performance, speed, reliability, durability, consistency, ease of use, design, form, customization
  • Psychological value: Psychological benefits and costs associated with the offering.
    E.g., experiences, emotions provided by a car (joy of driving, …), self-esteem, status, own rewarding, prestige, admiration, group belonging, self-extension, …
  • Monetary value: Monetary benefits and costs
    E.g., offering’s price, fees

5) Collecting and Assessing Behavioral Variables While Researching and Buying (Decision-Making)

  • Price sensitivity
  • Location or design sensitivity
  • Level of loyalty
  • Promotional response
  • Types of information searched

6) Collecting and Assessing Behavioral Variables of Service Usage

  • Frequency and time of use
  • Duration of use
  • Lead users
  • Used alone or in a group

7) Collecting and Assessing Behavioral Variables Related to the After Use of the Service

  • What consumers share about their experiences in these services.
  • Where do they share it (channels)?