Once we know who we have to speak to for understanding user needs, the next step is to create a research plan to know specifically who they are, where they are, and how we want to reach them. Step 2 when users set a design method is developing customer research plan and a discussion guide. The mindset here is we are going to fall in love with our users problems. We want to find a few hard problems to solve because if we solve them, we have a differentiated product system, service, or process. User need template 2, define your customer research plan. Who are the high priority target users and buyers? Who are some specific names of people and where do they work that you want to reach? Are they end-users, are they physicians, are the staff? Who are they and then two or three or four of the major questions that you have in your mind, this template you will involve as your project proceeds, you make it better, you iterate on your initial thinking. For the field research itself in this course, over the course of a couple of months, you won't have the time to probably speak to more, six or 10 is sufficient between six and 10 and that's going to take a lot of work. It's not the quantity it's the quality of the conversation. The rule of thumb that I use when I'm working on an innovation project is if I find that I'm learning more, talking to yet another person, I keep doing it. If I'm not really learning more than I know that I've reached that number it usually tends to be under 10, usually six or seven people. If it's the right target people for the innovation space. In health care, you'll find that a few really qualified people will tell you what you need to know. When you're doing the interviewing you need to do most of the listening. Now let the user do the talking, you want to lead them in the conversation but you want them to converse. You also want to look at their body language there, you want to understand what really upsets them because you'll read it on their face. Again, big problems versus little problems to solve. You need a roadmap of the discussion, the interview guide, any question that we have, we try and make an open-ended conversation. Most importantly, if the conversation is not going great, just end it gracefully. If it goes well, however, you should let them know it went really well and you should ask them if later on they want to see a prototype, a design, and you want them to co-design with you and you'll get a few people who want to do this and they'll become part of your team, unofficial members of your team. They'll become your source of knowledge and insight and testing and all good things and they'll give you a great motivation to do this project. Next, always ask the interviewee if he or she has two or three more people with whom you might speak to continue the customer research. Very important because that's the way you build up to that 6-10 people pretty quickly. I have this idea that every interview I should get two or three more additional user buyer leads, either from Rolodex or from their own contacts. Second template, it's called User Needs Template 3 and it says Customize this Discussion Guide. These are eight powerful questions that have never failed me or my students. You first ask the interviewee, how do they define the activity or problem, not how you define it but how did they define it? How do they define the problem or the experience? What they use now in terms of product, system services, or processes? What do they use now, what are the solutions? Where or from whom do they buy these products? What is good or bad about how or where they get them, is there any training or support or is it figure it out on your own? How satisfied is that interviewee with these current solutions? What is their single biggest one or two sources of frustration, dissatisfaction, and using the things that they use now, that's really the most important question. Who is responsible for making the decision, them or somebody else? Are there any decision criteria that you can learn from those buyers? Who are key influencers? In health care, big things are often bought by committees and there's a range of key influencers, whether it's the Chief Medical Officer or the Chief Information Officer or the head of safety in an operation, there's different influencers that are important in the decision-making process, the CFO has to be involved. What are the criteria used in evaluating alternatives? Is there a clear set of metrics? Then you want to try to find out how much does that person or their organization spend each month on these types of products or services or spend in an entire year. Lastly, if the interview is going really well, you say Okay, now innovate with me having discussed all these things, what would be the ideal solution for you for this problem space and how would you know that it was successful? How would you measure value? Another little tip for the interviewing is once in a while the opportunity presents itself when they talk about their problems to ladder them. Laddering means simply asking, why is that a problem? If you ask several whys, you get to the deeper need state. You use some laddering by judicially asking why, you'll get to answers for medication safety on looking at tracking things, the ability of getting information and preventing shrinkage, for example, it's interesting what laddering can do in the context of a discussion with a user. For physicians, those of you that are physicians as students, for you laddering is what you have learned throughout your career, it's differential diagnosis. Somebody presents with a certain indication, you dig down deep by asking a series of questions and getting some medical evidence through blood tests or examinations and you find out that what is the root cause of that illness that's presenting itself. For you folks, this should be easy, but don't be too much of the authority figure. Be the innovative listener, be a doctor with the users. I know many physicians are just great listeners as you are but you're not the expert here, let your users be the experts. Find the root causes of their needs or problems for the use case that you wish to address. It's really important for all of us, for me, with all my degrees, for me to not go in with a big solution. I always have a hypothesis. Yes, you should too but it's not a solution yet. You've got to get the user's problems needs that you don't really know yet, really clear in your mind. You have to understand the prioritization of the problems that they articulate. What causes those problems to be severe problems or not, to find those underlying deeper needs and causes and then you take that hypothesis, you either pivot or you proceed forward with it and you make your design better and more impactful.
