Many Product teams only listen to users in the beginning of the product development process.

After this initial research, they build their solution but don’t test it as they create it.

This gap in interacting with users (sometimes lasting months) is the Product Discovery Valley of Death.

Read these quick tips for recruiting and screening users

Based on 500+ users and 60+ Product teams over 5+ years of interviewing

When I first started interviewing users, I struggled to analyze the results.

We weren’t organized in how we asked for user feedback. And so analysis took too long.

User interviewers often talk too much, ask overly-specific questions or just ask the wrong type of question.

And when you lead interviews like this, the responses won’t be actionable.

Kicking off an interview with a user can be simple and stress free.

For most users, it’s the first or second time they are participating in a user test.

So at the start of the interview, I make the user feel comfortable and do a few things to make the interview as actionable and efficient as possible.

Interviewers often miss important user reactions.

I’ll hear users say “wow” when they encounter a concept but the interviewer will continue with their prepared script.

We need to stop and ask the user when we hear a reaction like that.

Many interviewers try to keep the user on the happy path rather than watching where the user wants to go.

Instead of talking when a screen first comes up…start watching and waiting.

Silence and frustration are necessary for teams to see what they need to fix.

Though interviewers should primarily listen and observe, there are moments when they need to interrupt or take an action.

Being proactive during a solution test interview is fine as long as it’s rare.

The emotional high of conducting user interviews is often met with the spiritual low of having to analyze the results.

User testing creates a lot of unstructured data: interview notes, video recordings, screener questionnaires and so on.

Teams can easily get overwhelmed with the amount of data they need to analyze.

Don’t use your gut to figure out which solution users preferred the most.

This introduces bias and reduces morale as different team members often have conflicting gut reactions.

Use a quantitative approach.

Everybody hopes that Product Discovery will yield clear answers in a fixed time frame.

In reality, user feedback is not unanimous and it often takes multiple rounds of solution testing to determine a result.

So when are you done? And did you find a winning solution?

Sometimes you need to find specific users fast. Theresa Charleston of National Geographic Learning describes websites that have deep user panels and can get results fast.

A remote user test can either feel like a tech support session gone wrong or a harmonious meeting of the minds. Theresa Charleston of National Geographic Learning tells us how to prepare for an insightful interview and set the user at ease even when they may be far away or new to user testing.

Even if you have zero budget for online tools, you can still create prototypes, recruit users and get product insights. Theresa Charleston of National Geographic Learning describes how to conduct product discovery with zero budget.

You can identify and score top prospects on your site as well as find individual power users to recruit for user testing using the FullStory platform.