The Perfect World and the Real World of Product Research
Twenty five mini-research ideas for finding something meaningful to work on.
In the perfect world, product managers have all the time, resources, and skills to do impeccable, in-depth market and user research.
In the perfect world, there is time to talk with a wide range of users, including existing users, potential users, and also users who have churned.
In the perfect world, there is time not just to talk to people but to observe them, immerse in their lives, and co-design solutions with them.
The perfect world does not exist, though. There is only the real world.
The real world has limited resources, unrealistic deadlines, and new teams that have not been able to do research at all.
In the real world, product managers may have to start from scratch and quickly find something meaningful to work on.
However, when you only have days or weeks to gather actionable insights, you cannot boil the ocean with in-depth or extensive research methods.
So let’s talk about mini-research.
Mini-research means following agile and pragmatic research principles when time is limited and resources are scarce.
Mini-research is about
- Looking for actionable insights
- with minimal effort
- using any combination of methods necessary.
It involves conducting a condensed version of a full research study, focusing on one key inquiry, and gathering just enough information to make an informed decision or recommendation.
It is not about cutting corners or sacrificing quality, but rather being extremely efficient and targeted with the research scope and methods.
This article contains 25 mini-research ideas for inspiration as well as advice on how to conduct research when under time constraints.
What are you going to do with that information once you have it?
Think of research as digging for gold. But instead of gold, you are searching for insights that are relevant and have practical application in the context of your work.
A typical in-depth explorative research project may cover a wide range of questions and delve deeply into certain topics of interest. The approach of going both broad and deep usually yields a lot of in-depth knowledge about the subject.
However, it also often happens that in-depth research takes a lot of time and ends with a report so detailed that it becomes unhelpful and overwhelming.
A mini-research approach improves the speed to action and reduces cognitive overload by keeping the end in mind and narrowing down the scope to what is essential.
For instance, when the end goal is to find ideas to strengthen the product’s competitive advantage, it may not always be necessary to start with a comprehensive competitive landscape analysis.
- Instead of analysing three competitors, start with one.
- Instead of evaluating the competitor across multiple dimensions like business model, strategy, feedback, and market share, tackle only public user sentiment.
- Instead of analysing all user feedback, focus on identifying areas where competitors’ users are unhappy and your product has theoretical potential to outshine after improvements.
Ultimately, the goal of research is not just to gather interesting information but to find actionable insights that can drive meaningful change. In this example, competitive advantage.
Once the scoped-down mini-research is finished and insights are applied, you rinse and repeat the process.
“To do successful research, you don’t need to know everything, you just, need to know one thing that isn’t known.” — Arthur Leonard Schawlow
Tradeoffs
When optimising for speed, there are tradeoffs. When the research is narrow-scoped, there is a higher risk of missed opportunities, blind spots, and false positives.
However, it works for situations where
- Quick, broadly accurate data now is more useful than more comprehensive data later.
- The decisions that are made based on the insights can be easily adjusted later.
- Finding trends or effects is more important than missing them, even if it means sometimes mistaking random events for significant ones.
Mini-research is like a flashlight. It does not always provide complete illumination, but it can give you just enough information to help you navigate in the dark.
25 mini-research ideas for inspiration
1. Strategy questions
When building a roadmap from scratch, the search area for meaningful user problems to solve has to be narrowed down first.
This is where gathering strategic insights helps. Strategic insights shed light on high-level challenges with the product or the market. For instance, issues like “60% of users do not finish onboarding,” “the churn is increasing,” or “users have started increasingly leaving for competitor X” are examples of strategic insights.
While strategic insights do not offer a specific user problem to solve, they do provide a meaningful place to start looking for one.
In an ideal world, strategic insights would cascade down from the larger product strategy. However, we do not always live in an ideal world.
In which case, here are some quick starts to consider:
- Trouble Metrics: Examine all accessible high-level business and product metrics. Look for troubling trends like increasing churn, low engagement, or a growing number of bugs. Choose the few top metrics where positive movement could have the most impact.
- Future-Backwards Exercise: Bring relevant stakeholders together to imagine the best and worst possible futures that could happen given the company’s current vision, strategy, and market conditions. Then work backward to present and identify key challenges that need to be tackled to bring the ideal state to life while avoiding the worst-case scenario. More: Future-Backwards Excercise
- Quick Gap Analysis: Review the product from different angles: usefulness, reliability, ease-of-use, delightfulness, competitiveness on the market, profitability, long-term staying power, and growth potential. How well is the solution doing in all of those categories? Consult with existing research, available metrics, and stakeholders and identify the biggest gaps between the current state and the ideal state. Prioritise the category with the biggest known gap.
- SWOT Lightning Round: Organise a SWOT brainstorming session with key stakeholders from leadership, research, customer service, design, and engineering. Focus on identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats specific to your product or product area. Prioritise topics with the biggest impact. More: SWOT Analysis
2. Problem and opportunity discovery
Problem and opportunity insights inform the specific user problems to solve. Problem insight could be, for example, “Some users get annoyed with a lengthy onboarding step X,” “Some users do not find the feature Y,” or “Some users need a way to get W done.”.
Problem and opportunity insights come in many different categories. It’s not an exact science, but in the context of this article, they are divided into three:
- Solution issues: when the solution does not work for the users
- Growth issues: when the solution is not attracting new users
- Profitability issues: when the solution is not attracting money
2.1 Solution problems
Trouble signs: high churn, low satisfaction, and/or low engagement with the product
User sentiment: “The solution does not really work for me.”
Questions to ask yourself:
- Expectation gaps: What kind of value or experience were users expecting but did not find or you did not offer?
- Barriers: What are the barriers between users discovering the solution and experiencing the benefits of the solution to the fullest?
Mini-research ideas:
- Over-the-Shoulder Onboarding: Invite potential customers with no previous experience to share their screens while they explore and try to use the product for the first time. Encourage them to narrate their experience and make note of any usability issues and unmet expectations in terms of functionality they assumed they would find in the product. Alternatively, this can also be done with users who have just recently signed up and still have fresh memories of their first usage.
- Public Complaints: Scan through user reviews on platforms like G2 or Capterra to identify the unmet needs of ex-customers. Focus on identifying missing functionality and product-related frustrations that have led target customers to churn and switch solutions.
- Tea with Customer Support: Chat with customer support team members to gather deeper insights on target customer complaints. Focus on identifying issues that are not only frequent but have also caused severe frustration and churn amongst new customers during their first weeks of usage.
- Exit Interviews: Send emails to recent target customers who have just stopped using the product after using it for a short period of time, inviting them to a quick conversation via a Calendly link. Use these interviews to understand their experiences and expectations that were not met.
- First-Day Experience Upgrade: Identify the most critical and frequently performed workflows that new users have to take to experience the benefits of the product for the first time. Brainstorm ways for users to complete these workflows with 50%+ fewer steps, time, or effort compared to the current solution.
2.2 Growth problems
Trouble signs: flat or declining user acquisition, mediocre user satisfaction
User sentiment: “The solution is OK, but so are other solutions.”
Questions to ask yourself:
- New selling points: What would make your solution an easy choice (amongst the alternatives) for those who are seeking a solution?
- Context and motivation: What motivates and hinders people from taking action and finding a (better) solution for the problem you are solving?
Mini-research ideas:
- Minimal Viable Ethnography: Set up calls with non-active target users and let them walk you through their yesterdays without focusing on your product usage. Search for new pain points and use cases that your product could extend to. Pay attention to how they are handling those use cases now, the context in which the need arises, and the words they use to describe their problems. More: Minimal Viable Ethnography
- Help Wanted: Find social media groups where potential target users are talking and sharing their experiences. Scan the content to identify problems that they are most actively and passionately talking about and searching solutions to. Pay attention to context, motivation, and the language they use to describe their problems.
- Elevator Rave Test: If your users were to rave about your solution to a colleague during a short elevator ride, what key benefits or features would you expect them to rave about? Assess whether your current users are actively talking about those benefits by examining user chatter on social media and review sites like G2. If these key benefits are not sparking the advocacy you expect, collectively brainstorm improvements that could change that.
- Competitor Shortcomings: Choose one direct competitor. Scan through their user reviews on platforms like G2 or Capterra to identify what their users wish was different or better. Focus on pinpointing opportunities where your product could do better and stand out in comparison, and brainstorm ways to get there.
- Switching Barriers: Talk with the sales team, new users, or non-users to identify barriers that make switching from alternative solutions difficult or costly. This could include awareness, motivation, perceived benefits, cost implications, the learning curve, etc. Identify one major friction and brainstorm ways to reduce it.
2.3 Profitability problems
Trouble signs: stagnant or declining profits and/or low conversion rates to paying or higher-paying plans
User sentiment: “The solution is OK, but nothing I need so much I would be willing to pay (more) for.”
Questions to ask yourself:
- Unmet needs: What problems do customers have that are not yet solved that they would pay to get solved?
- Delighters: What kinds of added value and experiences would delight and excite potential users so much that they would be willing to pay more?
Mini-research ideas:
- Upsell Interviews. Identify a segment of users who have severe pain and the resources to pay for a premium solution. Invite them to share their existing challenges with getting work done—both in and outside the context of your product. Focus on finding new and relevant use cases that the product has not solved yet but could.
- Leading the Revolution Interviews: Conduct interviews with seasoned industry professionals or highly engaged expert users, aiming to uncover areas where most current solutions on the market fall short in keeping up with the evolving industry’s standards and best practices. Focus on finding opportunities that few rivals have yet to pursue properly. Alternatively, skim sites like Gartner, Forrester, and Statista for reports on industry trends.
- Workflow Gap Analysis: Invite your existing target customers to share their screens as they walk you through the situations where they normally seek out and use your solution. Search to understand gaps in their workflows where they switch solutions, as well as activities they engage in right before and after using your solution. Focus on identifying new additional or adjecent use cases that the product could solve.
- Competitor Value Analysis: Engage with people who are paying a premium for competitive solutions, either directly or through social media channels. Understand what they appreciate about these competing solutions and why they are willing to pay a premium. Additionally, ask them to rank features or services based on what they need and value the most.
- Everyday Experience Upgrade: Identify the most critical workflows that engaged users have to typically take to experience the benefit of the product. Brainstorm ways for users to complete these workflows with 50%+ fewer steps, time, or effort compared to the current solution.
Qualitative problem insights can be further explored with targeted surveys and data analytics to more accurately gauge the scale of the identified opportunity. However, it is not always possible to predict the opportunity size and expected impact accurately, as user behaviour and preferences can be unpredictable in real life.
3. Design questions
Once a user problem or opportunity is identified, a solution needs to be designed to solve that problem.
Solution insights inform the final design and workings of the planned improvement. Solution insights could be something like “people care about data privacy with this feature” or “people expect it to look similar to Y” or “people usually work with information X in a specific order.”
Mini-research ideas:
- Co-designing with users: Invite users to sketch out parts of the most critical parts of the solution, such as workflow, layout, or navigation. This can be done remotely using collaboration tools like Miro. Encourage users to explain their thinking as they design, paying more attention to the reasoning behind their decisions than to the final designs themselves. More: 5 examples of collaborative user interviews.
- Best practice research: Review how other widely used solutions (not just direct competitors) have already solved similar situations. While 1:1 duplication of design is normally not recommended, incorporating already familiar elements helps users understand and adopt new solutions faster.
- Customer Critiques: Present customers with multiple developed mockups and/or screenshots of existing solutions already on the market similar to what you are thinking of building. Ask them to compare and critique the different options, including what they like and what they would improve.
- Hallway Usability testing: Have members from non-product departments interact with the new prototype by providing them with high-level tasks or steps that your users would take to reach their goals. Pay attention to moments of confusion and surprise. While usability testing with colleagues cannot uncover insights regarding the value and usefulness of the new feature, it can uncover many usability issues your real customers would experience as well.
- Rapid prototype testing: Schedule user interviews ahead for most days of the week. Develop a prototype of the new product feature or experience. Start with a sketch or low-fi prototype and iterate to high-fi. Ask users to interact with the solution and ask for their critiques. Pay attention to moments of confusion and unmet expectations. Refine the idea between tests and show a new version(s) each time.
- Concept Ranking: Present users with mock-ups or descriptions of different potential new features and gauge their reactions. Ask them to critique, rank options by usefulness, and highlight those they would be willing to pay (extra) for. This can be done remotely using collaboration tools like Miro.
Do not spend time pre-validating improvements that are low-effort and do not pose significant value or usability risks. Simply build them, release them to a small number of users, and follow up with the early adopters to get feedback based on real-life usage.
Bonus: Temporary Customer Council. During customer problem interviews, spot those who have an interest in the solution and are eager to offer feedback. Choose 3–5 to involve at different stages of the project, from concept development to prototype testing. As they are invested, they can respond quicker and with more detailed feedback. However, it is important to not fall into the trap of relying solely on the feedback from the Customer Council and/or designing solutions just for them.
Constraints foster creativity
In an ideal world, product managers have unlimited time, resources, and expertise to conduct flawless, in-depth research. But in real life, product managers often find themselves needing to make decisions quickly, without the luxury of extensive data analysis.
Constraints can be frustrating, but in the fast-paced world of product management, working with a deadline is often the norm rather than the exception.
The pressure to deliver results within a set timeframe can be daunting, but it also pushes us to think creatively.
Mini-research is a way of thinking that focuses on finding actionable insights with minimal effort, using agile and pragmatic research principles. It is useful when time is limited and resources are scarce, focusing on a single key inquiry and gathering just enough information for informed decision-making.
- Start with the end in mind. At the end of the day, the research is as good as it is applicable. Start with a clear idea of the possible practical implications of the findings. Identifying the desired application early on helps to make sure that each step of the research process is designed towards producing tangible benefits and solutions to real-life problems. Also read: Pragmatic research
- Narrow down the scope. Prioritise gathering crucial information directly related to your main question or problem. This helps you stay on track, avoiding distractions from less critical, albeit interesting, information. What matters later is not whether the research findings are “new” or “interesting,” but whether they are useful. Also read: Assumptions mapping
- Get creative with the methods. Do not be afraid to try different methods or mix and match them. If traditional approaches do not fit your needs and get the results you want, adapt or invent new methods that do. Also read: Research methods
- Aim for sufficient accuracy. Assess the level of detail and accuracy needed for your project, and aim to collect just enough data to meet these requirements. If a few confirming examples are sufficient to support your conclusions, do not seek exhaustive, statistically significant data. It is important to recognise when additional data does not significantly improve your understanding or decision-making and find the balance between data sufficiency and efficiency.
- Manage risks intelligently. Acknowledge the risks of making decisions with limited or low-accuracy data. It’s almost impossible to predict the future anyhow, no matter how much research is done, so develop strategies to minimise the chance of negative outcomes, like flexible planning, controlled experiments, or piloting new features with a small group of users before a full rollout.
In the world of product management, speed is often more important than perfection. The quest for professional perfection shouldn’t hinder progress.
Be bold and get creative!
This is my third article in the series about user research, talking about how to go faster. There is also The Diminishing Returns of Obsessive Customer Focus which talks about how to look wider, and When You Should Not Listen to Your Customers which talks about how to get deeper.
References
- The Diminishing Returns of Obsessive Customer Focus | by Maret Kruve | Product Coalition
- When You Should Not Listen to Your Customers | by Maret Kruve | Product Coalition
- Breaking It Down: Integrating Agile Methods and Ethnographic Praxis — EPIC
- Three principles of pragmatism for research on organizational processes — Leanne M Kelly, Maya Cordeiro, 2020.
- Instructions for a Future-Backwards activity: Backcasting to shift the status quo | by Hillary Carey
- SWOT Analysis: What It Is & How to Do It [Examples + Template]
- Minimum Viable Ethnography. One question.Ten minutes. No excuses. | by Erika Hall | Mule Design Studio | Medium
- 5 examples of collaborative user interviews — Designing with users | by Laura Eiche | Pipedrive R&D Blog | Medium
- Pragmatism — Research Methods Handbook
- Assumption Mapping Techniques for Product Discovery
- Design Research Techniques
