Minimum viable research

1. Minimum viable research

2. • Live music start up• 2nd biggest live music site after Ticketmaster• Fans track their favourite artists so they never miss them live• 7 million fans discover concerts on Songkick every month

3. The usual things• Daily stand ups• Kanban board• Short iteration cycles• Prototypes as the guide for what we are building.• Sketching hacks with designers, PM’s and devs• Post it notes and writeboards everywhere.• Deﬁne and measure the success of everything

4. Product development inspiration• Flow Interactive - UCD• Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden - Lean UX• Marty Cagan - Silicon Product Group• Tom Chi - Experience Lead at Google X• Jeff Paton - Dual track Scrum• Jake Knapp - Google Ventures• Eric Reis and Steve Blank - Lean start up

5. Customer discovery Product discovery Product delivery Listen Experiment Execute How we make stuff at Songkick

6. Steve Blank - Customer Discover• Is this worth working on?• Is there anyone out there who wants this?• If we could build a perfect solution to this problem, would anyone buy* it? Steve Blank circa 1978

7. Input Customer discovery Output Idea for a product Customers behaviours,area of product feature attitudes, goals, motivations, frustrations and pain points Identify Some validation that this is customers worth working on and there are people out there who want this. Meet with them Communicate what you learnt to the team Synthesis all the data / stories / artefacts you collected Is this worth working on? Is there anyone out there who wants this?

8. Input Product discovery OutputProduct / Biz Goal Validated learnings goCustomer problem into the product delivery backlog Ideas / concepts Hypothesis Analyse results Design experiments Run experiments How can we make it work? What solution(s) can we provide? Will people be able to use them?

9. Product discovery: hypothesisIf we show bands a share on Facebook button after they haveadded a tour datethen bands will share their events to Facebook,because they want to tell their fans about their shows.

10. Input Product discovery OutputProduct / Biz Goal Validated learnings go intoCustomer problem the product delivery backlog Ideas / concepts Hypothesis Analyse results Design experiments Run experiments

11. Product discovery: experiments• Build the solution• In-product prototype• Live data prototype (outside product)• Clickable prototype• Flat mock up• Paper prototype• + lots of other creative experiments - no code or interface needed

12. Input Product discovery OutputProduct / Biz Goal Validated learnings go intoCustomer problem the product delivery backlog Ideas / concepts Hypothesis Analyse results Design experiments Run experiments

13. Inputs Product delivery Validated product discovery ideas 1000’s of users Ideasrequesting the same feature Define success criteriaCompetitor product Prototype (qual/quant/KPI) features It’s still a iterative Refine Build process etc. Test Prioritise improvements Ship Measure How can we build this efficiently? How can we ensure what we are building is of good enough quality?

14. Facebook share experimentIf we show bands a share on Facebook button after they haveadded a tour datethen bands will share their events to Facebook,because they want to tell their fans about their shows.

15. Customer discovery Product discovery Product delivery Listen Experiment Execute How can we make it work? Is this worth working on? How can we build this efﬁciently? What solution(s) can we provide? Is there anyone out there How can we ensure what we are Will people be able to use our who wants this? building is of good enough quality? solutions to solve the problem? 30% 50% 20% Right now as a UXD at Songkick this is how I spend my time

16. Get out the building

17. ***Insert picture of me in London withbackpack or map or something***

18. Stay in the building and hack your space

19. Server room Shit everywhere

20. Meeting room Free - mic boom and screwdriver for over the shoulder mobile testing Free Window frames we found in the basement - lying around from office refurb projects £300 - knock a hole in the wall, fit the frame and ordinary glass £30 - Car window tint film (used by boy racers but also makes a pretty good budget two way mirror) Free - mic I stole from the unused conference calling set up.

21. Audio and video cables - Maplin £60Free - Old mini-hiﬁ - donated by aSongkick developer and used as apre amp to increase the volume ofthe sound from meeting room.4 sets of headphones - £15 eachbut gradually upgraded to bettersets (donated by people who workat Songkick)4 way audio splitter £50 MaplinObservation room

22. Grand old duke of YorkSongkick CEO Ian Hogarth

23. Get feedback from users as often as you can

24. We run 3 - 6 users every Wednesday 12People Hello! 0 people gets you 0 insights 0 0 Insights alot

25. 3 websites, 2 mobile apps and Spotify app Fan apps Data and Crowd sourced industry touring Songkick.com iPhone app Android app detour-ldn.songkick.com Spotify app tourbox.songkick.com detour.songkick.com

26. 3 websites, 2 mobile apps and Spotify app Fan apps Data and industry Crowd sourced touring Design team QA Support team

27. Train the product managers to runresearch sessions• Product managers have natural empathy for customers, are great communicators and enjoy talking to people• The more people that can run sessions the more feedback you’ll get

28. Always know exactly what you are tryingto learn before you start

29. Agree what are the most important thingsto learn and uncover• Write them down so you can refer to them later.• Structure sessions so 1/3 to 1/2 are around customer discovery• Rest of session is for feedback on prototypes and evaluating things we recently shipped.

30. Experiment with remote research tools

31. Few example of the ones we use regularlySelf-Moderated Survey tools Click and memory Analytics remote tools test tools Google Analytics and log ﬁle analysis

32. Remote tools are just another data point• Sit along side our qualitative research• Help us build a clearer picture of our customers

33. Hustling the recruit

34. Recruiting is hard• We all know that the research we run is only as good as the people who we choose to participate• Getting the recruit right is important!• We always write a recruitment screener

35. Recruiting yourself - you know yourcustomers better than anyone• Existing customers - mine support desk, Twitter and Facebook• Target customers - place ads where they already hang out • Post ads on Gumtree • Go to concert venues • Get people who work in music shops to help • Post on musician sites / Contact music colleges • Identify participants who can help with future recruits

36. The 2 for 1 recruiting trick Place ad on Survey on Gumtree Polldaddy 5 participants for your next study Include speciﬁc Include date, outline how the session recruitment screener = works and offer questions and 200 responses a small incentive larger survey for your survey. questions

37. Feedback to the team as soon as possible

38. Get observersto help out withthe analysis

39. How we get feedback to the team fast• Allow 30 mins between each session• Get observers to help out with the analysis• Tweak prototypes or the live site between sessions to learn as much as possible• Write top 5s after each session and share them with the team right away

40. A little on how I do analysis• Record audio of sessions with Pearnote• Record all the sessions with person in picture, audio and what happened on screen but rarely get a chance to watch them :(• Want to ﬁgure out a way to make highlights video fast - WIP.• Report back on research goals + hypothesis in 24 hrs.• Sometimes afterwards I build customer storyboards to use in persona work later.

41. Customer storyboards Touring lifecycleCustomer insights

42. Just do it *JFDI*

43. Minimum viable research• Even with a small team, a little cash and limited time you can ﬁnd a way to run research every week.1. Get out the building2. Stay in the building and hack your space3. Get feedback from your target audience as often as you can4. Always know what youre trying to learn before you start5. Experiment with remote research tools to ﬁll in the gaps6. Hustle the recruit7. Get feedback to the team as soon as possible8. Just do it

44. By making research easy to doregularly and turning aroundanalysis fast, user research isnow a key part of how we makeproduct and strategic businessdecisions.

45. Your responsibility as people designingproducts and services is to step out ofyour own perspective and immerseyourself in the world of the people youare designing for.

46. The problem is out there, not at your desk.

47. Thanks Jo Packer @jujupacker jo@songkick.comjujupacker@googlemail.com

48. Links to people who haveinspired my approach to makingproductsFlow Interactive - UCDLUXR - Lean UXJeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden - Lean UXMarty Cagan - Silicon Valley Product GroupTom Chi - Experience Lead at Google XJeff Paton - Dual track ScrumJake Knapp - Design StaffEric Reis - Lean start upSteve Blank - Lean start up