Ethnography and Product Development Part 2

As we continue our discussion on ethnography and product development, we take a look at why ethnography may be more valuable than other types of data collection for product development. Some of these benefits include: Cognition vs. Behaviors When you ask someone how they use a product, their answer is going to be based on what they know.

They may say that they like it when a product does this or that, and they wish their product does something else, and that's it. But when you actually watch someone use a product or engage in a behavior, you're likely to notice someone doing something that even they don't realize they're doing.

For example, let's say you're trying to learn how to develop the package your food product will be placed in. You observe people picking up your product or similar products and notice that they often struggle to find the ingredients list, and that causes some of them to put the product back. They may not even realize this is occurring, but it tells you that your ingredients list should be more visible.

You can use this with almost every type of product. The Snuggie, for example, is an extremely popular new product. The Snuggie is a long, backwards robe.

There's no general reason the product should be popular. But chances are the developers watched as people struggled to pick up a phone or eat their food when they were under a blanket, and realized that adding sleeves would be beneficial, and suddenly they had a "brilliant" product idea. All of these are reasons ethnography is so valuable.

No Editing In addition, provided the ethnographic testing is completed correctly, ethnography isn't prone to consumer biases. In a focus group, the customer may decide not to provide a certain answer because they're afraid of what others will say. In an interview, the interviewer may write down what the consumer said, but fail to notice facial expressions.

With ethnography, all of this data is still collected, and that can be incredibly beneficial for companies that need to really understand product use and customer needs.

Once you've performed ethnographic research, you'll be able to easily explore what you've found further, and possibly come up with innovative or otherwise interesting ideas for targeting the marketplace and meeting the needs of the consumer. Ethnographic research is a useful tool for product development, and while it's difficult for many companies to do, it's something that well financed companies should at least consider.