OK, you’re ready to run a user study. You’ve learned how to recruit participants, write an interview guide, interview people, and summarize results. But there’s just one problem: you don’t have access to a research lab. Don’t worry! Read on to learn how Pocket built a lightweight research lab for mobile app testing in their office. —John Zeratsky Last month...

This article was originally published on the Google Ventures Blog. Last month we launched #UXmarch to help companies build better products. I asked people to pledge to conduct a scrappy UX study in March. The reaction was amazing: 1,002 people took the #UXmarch pledge! That’s about 48 UX studies per weekday in March. Most of these people work for startups...

At the Google Ventures Design Studio, we have a five-day process for taking a product or feature from design through prototyping and testing. We call it a product design sprint. This is the final in a series of seven posts on running your own design sprint. As day 5 of the product design sprint dawns and the team files into...

This article was originally published on the Google Ventures Blog. Blue Bottle Coffee does it. Nest does it. RetailMeNot, 23andMe, and Google do it. It’s UX research, a secret weapon used by successful companies to design better products. As a UX Research Partner at Google Ventures, I’ve conducted hundreds of customer interviews with startups in our portfolio. Time and again...

At HubSpot, we recently did a product design sprint with the Google Ventures Design Studio. It was a great experience, not only to work alongside a team of highly accomplished designers, but to observe their design process and how they proceed through a project. Our design team learned a lot from Google Ventures. We learned about designing quickly. We learned...

Research interviews go best when participants feel comfortable and confident — they’re more verbal, more willing to explore, and more willing to play along. So when an interview isn’t going well, I check for signs of low status in the person I’m interviewing and adjust my body language to make them feel more in charge. (These techniques come from improv...

At the Google Ventures Design Studio, we have a five-day process for taking a product or feature from design through prototyping and testing. We call it a product design sprint. This is the sixth in a series of seven posts on running your own design sprint. On day 2 you drew concept sketches. On day 3, you made a plan...

By now we all know that successful startups focus on learning about their users — figuring out what features, branding, and messaging resonate and perform best. Smart teams invest valuable time designing, building, testing, and iterating their own designs and prototypes based on learning from analytics and user studies. But don’t forget to test your competitors’ products too! Think of...

Sometimes the hardest thing about user testing is simply making time for the logistics. At Twilio, we’ve found that events we’re already going to — like conferences and industry meetups — can be a great way to get easy access to a big pool of potential users. User testing at events will not give you perfect metrics, ideal user profiles,...

At the Google Ventures Design Studio, we have a five-day process for taking a product or feature from design through prototyping and testing. We call it a product design sprint. This is the fifth in a series of seven posts on running your own design sprint. At this point in a design sprint, you’ve got a lot of ideas down...

This article was originally published in GigaOm. If you’re running a lean startup, “launch and learn” is undoubtedly a familiar mantra. But launching a new feature can take weeks or even months, and for a scrappy startup that’s a potentially make-or-break issue. Our design studio works with dozens of startups each year to help teams define their products and features....

Want fast answers to big questions about your market, competitive products, or customers’ behaviors and attitudes? First look for existing research. When companies start exploring new features, new products, or new markets, they often need to answer big research questions. For example: How has Internet radio changed the way people listen to FM radio? When and why do consumers rent...