(2017-03-31) Torres The Ladder Of Evidence Get More Value From Your Customer Interviews And Product Experiments

Teresa Torres: The Ladder of Evidence: Get More Value From Your Customer Interviews and Product Experiments - Product Talk

Rather than asking me for facts, ask me for specific stories about my workouts. Stories convey context like where the workouts happen, with whom, the emotion associated with the workout (did I love it, was it a grind), how I felt beforehand (was it hard for me to go, was I excited to go), how I felt afterwards (was I glad I went, did I regret it), and so much more.

Asking people for specific stories about the past is one of the richest ways to generate insights about which opportunities to go after and which solutions might deliver on those opportunities

But no matter how good you get at collecting specific stories, you still have to test those insights. And that brings us to the top two rungs of our ladder.

The key is to try to simulate the experience your customer would have if your product or service was real.

You’ll notice that the top two rungs each have two options. We’ve already talked about the options on the right. The options on the left are for when you are building a product or service that is similar to a competitor’s product. In this case, you can use existing solutions to test your idea. Instead of simulating an experience, you can ask a user to show you what they do using your competitor’s product. And instead of waiting until your product or service is live, you can observe them during a real-life experience using a competitor’s product.