There are three major tools that developers and marketers use to understand their markets: Surveys, Focus Groups and Observational Research. Surveys and Focus groups are primary research tools for most developers and marketers since they are the most convenient ways to gather data. Observational Research is not a common mode of research because it’s expensive, time-consuming and requires experts to administer and analyze. At Funderstanding we use them all but…

We use Observational Research to drive our empathic design process.

With Observational Research, people share their lives with you; they show you who they are. In a survey or a focus group, you don’t get past a person’s persona.

The deeper and more substantial insights that come from Observational Research give us an extreme knowledge that enables us to build our product to better meet the needs and desires of people.

Here are some ways to observe:

• as people interact with their peers, parents and teachers.
• in different environments – classrooms and at home – while playing games, doing work and describing/demonstrating their likes and dislikes. We record this info and catalogue it.
• ask your subjects to keep a diary of their activities, places they go, thoughts they have and things they like.
• We interview them and ask them about their likes, dislikes, their friends and their community.
• We study their conceptual maps of their favorite placesand their community.
• We document and study videotapes as short as 5 seconds, examine fieldnotes, analyze conceptual maps, correlate photostories and diaries and listen to what they have told us in interviews.
• We hold weekly analysis sessions in which we discuss and refine themes, keywords, and topics, compare notes and finally we develop models that are based on real data and are testable.

Our research has helped us understand that people’s activities, likes, and dislikes are driven (controlled) by measurable and testable factors.