What GOOTB Is and Why It’s Awesome

I have a new favorite acronym for the week:

GOOTB.

Pronounced “go͞ot-bə,” it stands for Getting Out Of The Building. The phrase comes from the practice of intentionally going out into the world for research as opposed to just getting information from people around you at home, from friends, in the office, or at school. It could just as easily —and perhaps more accurately— be GOOYB: Getting Out Of Your Bubble.

This proved to be very eye-opening for my team, BAX, as we went out to do user research this past week. Our current target market is young travelers, and as a result it’s dangerously easy for us to simply fall back on the option of grabbing friends and peers walking down the halls of our school and pulling them aside for an interview. However, what turned out to be our most interesting and insightful interview during this round was one we had with a couple of young travelers from Belgium. We had never met them before but were only introduced by a friend who we had interview earlier in the day and who happened to be their Airbnb host for the night. The couple graciously allowed us to come talk to them at the place they were staying and shared many interesting insights about their experiences as young travelers. These were things which we would not have heard had we only spoken to other students at our own school. It was especially valuable to be able to talk to people who had not only traveled a number of times in the past, but who were actually traveling as we talked to them.

In general, going out and actually talking to people really helped to dispel some of our assumptions and even disproved two of our hypotheses.

Hypothesis: People get upset when they’re plans get messed up while traveling.

Learning: THEY DON’T. In fact, people really like having things that force them to be spontaneous and figure things out on the spot when they’re traveling.

Hypothesis: People are less active and healthy while traveling

Learning: While some people are, indeed, less active and tend to indulge in more unhealthy food while traveling, others are actually MORE active while traveling as they hike around backpacking and participate in local activities.

BAX is still discussing options for how to narrow down our market and focus our research moving forward. Currents prospects lie in targeting one very specific group of travelers, such as backpackers, or focusing on one particular aspect of the travel experience, such as the process of recording a trip for reflection and memory later on. Regardless of which direction we end up going though, we will be sure to gear up and get ready for some GOOTB.