Uncovering need and validating ideas

Marieke McCloskey shares advice on how to build products that people love by spending time in the product discovery phase: understanding who your users are, what they need, and how they might use and react to your product. Along the way, Marieke outlines fast and affordable ways to understand your customers and validate design concepts through remote research.

Want to build products that people will use? You need to spend time getting to know the people you want using your products. Marieke McCloskey explains how to conduct your own interviews and “field” observations. (Field is in quotation marks because you’ll learn how to gather contextual feedback and insights without watching over people’s shoulders.) Uncovering need is only part of the puzzle though. Brainstorming solutions and testing them are also requirements for success. Marieke discusses the importance of getting early feedback on product and feature ideas and continuously testing your designs and prototypes. Along the way, Marieke shares videos and anecdotes from studies run at UserTesting. This session is sponsored by UserTesting.