Learning from others: latent needs, active needs and why they both matter
“Wow. I never knew I needed this, and now I can’t live without it.” That’s a customer’s reaction when you’ve met their latent need.
An event popped into my Mighty Networks feed called ‘Driving innovation from your customers latent needs’.
User needs are familiar to me, they form the backdrop for the GDS service manual, but this sounded interesting. So, at 7pm on a Monday night I sat down for a webinar with around 200 other folks from across the world to see what Jared Spool had to say.
What are latent needs and active needs?
An active need is something a user can accurately describe and recognise. When we don’t meet them, it causes frustration. In the digital world we work and live in, people match their life experience to a pain with another service they have identified.
In research we might hear this:
‘I get notifications like this on my phone’
Latent needs are invisible to users so they can’t describe them to you. When they are satisfied it makes a huge difference because they never considered that it could be any other way. In research you won’t hear the need expressed to you but you may hear:
‘It’s just got to be this way’
The example Jared used was as follows:
Example: A user asks for a way to export their data from the system. This is an active need.
- They are tired of copying and pasting the data from one system to another.
- They’ve identified the problem and know that other systems allow data to be exported.
- The team can implement a data export function to satisfy the active need.
Nobody will see this capability as innovative. We have to be more inquisitive and ask what, and why, does the user need a data export for. We can imagine various reasons.
- The user wants a backup of their data.
- The user wants to copy the data into another application e.g. excel
- The user wants to make charts from the data in excel
- The user wants to share the charts with their boss to show progress
Solving the needs go beyond a data export function. The user doesn’t realize we have the capability to solve those needs.
Why does this matter?
People don’t know they have these needs. So when we uncover them we can think of innovative ways to meet them.
The point made by Jared was this comes down to the difference (often misunderstood) between innovation and invention.
Innovation isn’t about inventing something new. Innovation is about creating value that didn’t exist before. Innovation comes when we turn a good, or poor experience, into a great experience.
That in turn delights our customers, and they then tell others how great their experience was. It keeps us a step ahead and creates value for the business.
How do we find these needs?
Active needs just pop out at you and stare you in the face. Small, fast bits of research really help here. Remember 80% of usability improvements come from 5 users.
Scripted interviews, surveys, voice of the customer and usability tests are great at revealing active needs. A significant amount of user research focuses in this area and it’s a good place to start.
But to get to latent needs takes a different approach. It’s where we get into what Jared called ‘deep hanging out with your users’.
This is when you observe them in their natural environment, going through their entire experience. It’s a more mature research method, it takes time, and it’s something to work towards.
How might we use this at Arnold Clark?
The starting point is always to pick the right method for the question you want to answer. Certainly ‘deep hanging out’ is not for every product, and its not something you do all of the time.
But there are two methods that we could work towards.
Firstly, the diary study. One of the best-known longitudinal studies. It can be a few days, a week, or longer, depending on the goals and objectives you want to achieve. Feedback can come in a whole variety of ways from daily feedback forms, big whiteboards with post-its, video snippets or via Microsoft Teams.
Secondly contextual inquiry. This involves getting out to your users, observing them in-depth and carrying out individual interviews with a small group of people. It takes time but at the right time in a project this can be invaluable.
Take aways?
For many people latent needs and active needs may feel familiar, very like the Kano model and how to delight customers. Thats OK, there is always cross over in language and approach so find one that works.
For anyone doing user research I’d always say just pause, for a minute, and think about what you really want to know. Set your goal and your questions.
And go from there.
Examples of ‘deep hanging out’
How a diary study was used to create rich personas at Essex County Council
Some creative ways to run diary studies. It can be much more than feedback forms.
Some hints and tips here for good contextual inquiry.
A case study from the Home office of researching in context.
