Can you live without user research?
I’m a huge fan of Jason Fried and all the things he’s managed to create over the last 18 years with Basecamp. He speaks his mind, while acknowledging that his opinions are based on his own experiences and background. He never tries to dictate.
His opinions on efficient work practices and company structures are inspiring and while his thoughts on meetings and remote work may not be practical for everyone, they do make us question our assumptions about the ways we work.
So it was with great interest that I listened to his recent interview with Jake Knapp and Jonathon Courtney on the Product Breakfast Club podcast. As expected, Jason makes a lot of sense but when he started to describe his concerns around user testing and validating the outputs of design sprints, there was two caveats that I felt are worth mentioning before we all run off and change our own processes.
Firstly, the guys at Basecamp use Basecamp. More importantly, they use it in similar ways to their clients — planning projects, communicating, hosting documents. Therefore, if they’re experiencing a pain point, or identify an opportunity, chances are their clients will feel the same. This is a very unique position to be in.
In both of the companies I’ve worked at, employees did use their own software, but in both cases they used it differently to our clients. In Globoforce, we were much heavier users than our clients which meant we would often assume a level of expertise that was not evident in our users. In Newswhip we also use our product but for personal interest. Not as part of a job like our customers do. Again a big distinction.
If we were to start making assumptions based on how we think things should work, we’ll soon end up building features that won’t resonate with our users’ real needs. It makes much more sense for us to reach out to existing users so we can get a more accurate understanding of where they’re struggling.
Secondly, Basecamp has tens of thousands of users. That number of people can generate huge amounts of feedback on which you can make educated decisions. Between tracking user data and listening to customer requests they can get a comprehensive picture of where current pain points and opportunities are (both things that Basecamp do very well).
For smaller companies (particularly start-ups) who have a much smaller user base, there may only be one or two pieces of reliable feedback per week. Not enough to be basing weeks of development work on. In this situation, it’s important to be continuously gathering formative data from users. And with a limited pool, good qualitative interviews remain the best way of getting insights on which to base product decisions.
Jason is as usual, correct. If you’re lucky enough to be in a position similar to Basecamp then I wholeheartedly recommend you explore the workflows he suggests. For the rest of us, we still need to rely on those traditional ways of gathering good, useable data from our users.
