{"id":7701,"date":"2017-05-10T16:30:51","date_gmt":"2017-05-10T15:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intercom.com\/blog\/?p=7701"},"modified":"2020-07-30T12:57:58","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T11:57:58","slug":"product-research-right-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/product-research-right-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"The right way to ask the right research questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feedback from customers is a vital input for product development. But if you want to get the most out of product research, you\u2019ve got to ask the right questions.<\/p>\n

A good way to go about this is to start at the end (Google Ventures have some pretty solid advice<\/a> on how you can do that). Think about what you want the outcome of the research to be. Do you want to understand what customers are using your product for? Or are you trying to understand how successfully it meets their needs? When you define the questions you’re really trying to answer, you can work backwards and craft the right research to get you there.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a short guide to some questions that you can ask to achieve different research goals.<\/p>\n

Evaluating the success of a feature<\/h2>\n

If you\u2019ve shipped a feature and you want to understand whether it\u2019s doing well or not, it\u2019s good to ask the people who are actively<\/i> using it. By doing this, you\u2019ll be able to reveal any underlying issues users might be having, while also getting great feedback on how you can improve and iterate on what you\u2019ve built. Remember to keep it simple and straightforward by asking a sequence of questions like these:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cWhat works well about X?\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. \u201cWhat\u2019s confusing, if anything, about it?\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. \u201cWhat could we improve?\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This will allow the user to think logically about what they like\/dislike about the feature. Another important factor here is that by asking for good and bad points separately, the user won\u2019t feel obligated to only give positive answers as you\u2019ve remained balanced in your questioning.<\/p>\n

    Understanding user intent<\/h2>\n

    So your analytics shows you customers are heavily and repeatedly using a particular feature. Great. But do you know what they\u2019re actually using it for? They may not all be using the feature for the same reason. Digging deeper on their goals could shed light on your customers unmet needs.<\/p>\n

    If you want to understand the intention behind usage, it\u2019s smart to ask them a question about the feature just after they\u2019ve used it. This means the feedback you receive is likely to be much more accurate as you\u2019re not asking the user to recall an experience from a long time ago. Human memories of product interactions can decay fast. Some questions to ask in this scenario would be:<\/p>\n