Our July power user profile: (r)evolution

Posted July 27, 2011 by Matt Warta | Permalink

One of the best things about having a new product is seeing how users make it their own. Many product companies have a tough time thinking outside of their own little dirty fishbowl, and can have a narrow view of how customers will use their product. We are not immune to this. In the real world, we are amazed at what our customers come up with that we had never envisioned. (r)evolution is one of those companies who continues to help shape how we see GutCheck working.

The (r)evolution team has done many projects with us, but what stuck out the most was how they chose to test 10 product concepts in two days. They did 48 one-on-one interviews in 48 hours! (And yes, they were on Team Edition – no one researcher should be subjected to that many IDIs in so-little-time.)

The coolest thing about how (r)evolution did their research wasn’t their speed, though – it was the fact that they actually had their in-house graphic designer sitting in the room with them. So as moderators kept track of respondent feedback, when consistencies emerged the designer would incorporate them into a new version of the visual concept for testing with the next group of respondents. So they were able to effectively go from rough concept ideas to their winning concepts in just 2 days! Further quantitative testing proved this out. You can check out the case study with them at our website if you are interested.

(r)evolution introduced us to the idea of on-the-fly analysis AND product iteration happening at the same time. This helped them save a lot of time and it gave us a good look into how our users are determining the kind of product GutCheck is – driving it to be something we hadn’t even imagined.

Thanks, (r)evolution, and happy chatting!

Want to be a power user? Let us know how you’re using GutCheck or how can we make GutCheck work better for you. Leave us a comment below, let us know on Twitter, or drop us a message on our community page!

Posted in (r)evolution, power users | Bookmark Bar

Nightmare research and the people who deal with it

Posted July 25, 2011 by Elizabeth Taddonio | Permalink

Did you ever find yourself falling into a Clients from Hell k-hole and not knowing whether you want to laugh or cry so you sit there and just feel weird in your heart?

Well we want to know about the ways your research has gone wrong, and we’ll give a free chat to the best story! SO that you can do more research! How does that sound?

Share and comment below!

Posted in Just for fun | Bookmark Bar

Defining “adulthood” through qualitative interviews

Posted July 19, 2011 by Elizabeth Taddonio | Permalink

If you had to think about it, really reach into your brain and pull out a silver memory strand (Harry Potter on the brain here, sorry!) and define the moments that made you really feel like an adult – what would you say?

About a year ago, I was in my boyfriend’s apartment trying to find a job, watching Cats 101 and eating egg whites and tortillas every day. We didn’t have any money, and our entertainment consisted of walking up the street to the flower garden and trying not to get stung by bees. I had no health insurance, but I had a Master’s degree. Yes!

The New York Times was telling me that, as a 20-something, I was avoiding adulthood. And I wanted to disagree – I was paying bills, I’d moved across an ocean and across the country in the last few years, I’d filled out forms and leases and legal contracts on my own. But why wasn’t that convincing enough? Why didn’t I have a headboard? Why didn’t I even own a bed?

Even with a job and a retirement plan and health insurance, I still wonder at my adulthood. My family came to visit us, for instance, and while I cooked my own homemade sauce and macaroni, all I could offer them for refreshments after dinner were Tecate, water, and pickle juice. Why didn’t we have milk? Everyone has milk. How had we forgotten to pick up something like juice? Do adults drink juice? Why don’t we keep juice in the house?

Adulthood is an evolving term – something we’re told to strive for but then never given an instruction manual to achieve. I wanted things like financial security and a job. I wanted health insurance and a salary. But none of that was guaranteed just because I had a degree, for instance. None of it is guaranteed if you’re smart or motivated, either. There’s something enigmatic about it, and it seems like you only know adulthood once you’re there, staring at it, saying “now I want to go back.”

To me, adulthood is a compendium of many things – when I got my passport, when I first read a map, when I gave a friend’s cat insulin shots, when I started wearing a watch. So I decided to ask people – at what moment did you feel like an adult? What events signify adulthood to you?

Offline, my colleagues and friends mentioned having children, coming up with an investment plan and paying for draining bills. Also buying a washer and dryer, adopting pets, and joining a gym. Others mentioned “dictating grounds for engagement with my parents” or the moment when they realized that their parents weren’t mythical creatures – they were humans who made mistakes and even needed advice.

On the GutCheck platform, of the 8 people I interviewed the most common response was marriage, childbirth, and graduating from college/ maintaining a fulltime job.

A couple of respondents gave touching and poignant answers about when they first became adults, with a 27 year old male relaying how at age 15 his father left his family, leaving him to take responsibility for his sisters.
“Many people will become adults because of work and responsibilities that comes with it or starting family of their own,” he wrote. “Sometimes like in my experience life events will make you mature very fast.”

Another respondent, a 36 year old female, recounted a similar early adulthood when she had her first child. She wrote, “For me it was very different. I had my first child very young so I was on my own by the age of 18. For my children I hope that they will take advantage of the support offered to them and make the most of their adolescence.”

On the materialistic side, people equated things like buying a home, a car, and responsibly maintaining credit cards as signs of adulthood. My 21 year old male respondent wrote, that “cars, expensive watches, and jewelry” signified adulthood. When asked why? He responded, “One generally needs to be an adult with gainful employment to buy those things.”

Interestingly, when asked what advice about adulthood they would give to a person younger than them, both my 26 year old female respondent and my 58 year old male respondent said to “budget” and “live within their means”. The 58 year old added, “do not eat out everyday.”

Equating adulthood with marriage, owning a car or home, or graduating from college can be a dangerous assumption – not everyone has access to these materialistic or legal milestones. So what does adulthood mean to you, and how did you know when it happened?

Posted in Checkin' It Out, Just for fun, qualitative research | Bookmark Bar