Ever wonder why big brands end up creating similar products to one another, despite spending millions to protect trade secrets? Their researchers all seem to be doing the same type of research, talking to the same types of customers, asking them the same types of questions.
The discipline of innovation (by way of design thinking and UX research) began disrupting this approach about 20 years ago, but I fear our preference for quantitative models and recent reliance on AI is moving us further from our customers and deeper into a murky pool of derivative data.
Unobvious insights are unknown and often invisible
We’re infatuated with algorithms that claim to know us better than we know ourselves. But what if the next product breakthrough isn't hiding in lines of code, but in the very thing that makes us human?
Imagine a world where understanding your customer isn't just about data points, but about feeling the weight of their world on your shoulders.
This is where empathy comes in. It’s not just a soft skill—it's the sharpest tool you have for cutting through the noise and crafting solutions that truly resonate with your target customer. Viewed in this way, empathy becomes a prerequisite for creating value.
The discovery phase of ‘unknown unknowns’ was always my favorite in the innovation process. It urges you to become an anthropologist or ethnographer, deep diving into the world of your customer. When we zoom out of a person’s experience beyond using a product and engaging with its features, we begin to see the unobvious, invisible and unmet needs to be solved.
We’re infatuated with algorithms that claim to know us better than we know ourselves. But what if the next product breakthrough isn't hiding in lines of code, but in the very thing that makes us human?Amena Schlaikjer
To do that, we need to sense how they may feel, and even co-create the solution they didn’t know they needed. Otherwise it’s just an interview collecting facts.
Zoom out to get perspective
I used a simple framework at my old innovation firm: be them, with them, about them. Instead of interviewing 30 of the same type of person, talk to 10 people who have a slightly different relationship to your product (super users, early adopters, fringe customers).
Then, talk to 10 people who know them intimately (partners, colleagues, neighbors); and finally, 10 experts who know more about their challenge than they do (specialists, teachers, experts). If you open up the scope of who you talk to, you’ll learn more about their world and gain a better sense of the challenges and pain points they face.
Be them: walk a mile in their shoes
- Identify your end users–the people who will use your product or consume your content. Don't just think demographics; think psychographics. What keeps them up at night?
- Conduct deep chats. Stop interrogating people from behind a clipboard or recorder. Don't just ask what they do, ask why they do it. Then ask why again. And again. Peel that onion until you hit the core of their motivation.
Pro tip: shadow them for a day.
You'll be amazed at what you learn when you shut up and observe. Notice the workarounds they've created. The frustrations they've normalized. The little victories they celebrate. Get sleuthy (with their consent): open their drawers, go through their bags, ask them to take you through a daily habit. Going a little deeper will shatter some assumptions and give you new insights.
With them: explore their ecosystem
- Don’t just identify customers, identify other people in their ecosystem. Who else inhabits your customer’s world? Think beyond the obvious. If you're designing a productivity app, don't talk to other professionals—speak with your target customer’s spouses, their kids and close members of their community.
- Set up interviews with the people you’ve identified. They often see blind spots your customers can't. Your customers might tell you they need faster task completion. Their colleagues might tell you they need better collaboration tools. Both are right, but for different reasons.
Pro tip: Create a relationship map with different indicators for how people connect.
Who influences your customer’s decisions? Map out the web of relationships and power dynamics. You might find that the real decision-maker (or influencer) isn't who you thought it was.
About them: tap into expert knowledge
- Find the specialists. Who knows more about your audience than they know about themselves? These aren't just industry experts; they're the hidden support system in your customer’s world.
- Conduct expert interviews for a reality check and future forecast rolled into one. Ask them not just about what is, but what could be. What trends are they seeing? What problems do they anticipate? What are the consequences of certain behaviors?
Pro tip: Zoom out and think about the problem space.
If you are innovating toothpaste, don’t just talk to dentists, but perhaps different types of cleaning experts, like someone in a related world who knows about the challenges of abrasion or a nutritionist who knows about dental microbiota. Find an expert who disagrees with conventional wisdom. That's where the gold is. A specialist who may be naive about your customer can still have a unique idea of the problems they’re facing.
Empathy is a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets.Amena Schlaikjer
As you work through these steps, it’s important to think and feel. You’ll gain an intuitive understanding of your target customer, which will allow you to anticipate your target customer’s next move before they make it.
Synthesize your empathy pangs
Now for the cluster fun. This is where research meets interpretation, and innovators with deep domain experience can use pattern recognition skills as a superpower. This isn't just about data–it's about stories, emotions and unspoken needs. It's about reading between the lines and hearing the silence between words. This exercise along with lots of other awesome tools can be found in Sticky Wisdom.
- Cross-reference insights. Look for patterns across all three groups of people you interview. Where do they align? Where do they diverge? The intersections and contradictions are where innovation lives.
- Identify contradictions or tensions. These are often where breakthrough innovations hide. If your users say one thing, but their behavior says another, dig deeper. There's a story there.
- Create empathy maps. This is a visual representation of what users say, think, feel and do. But don't stop there. Add layers for what experts predict and what ecosystem players observe. Your empathy map should be a living, breathing document.
- Cluster findings into themes. With an overview of all the things you observed, heardand sensed, start to surface about a dozen themes that might lead to an interesting point of view .
- Synthesize themes and insights. From each of the themes, this is where entrepreneurs can start to articulate the unmet needs into ideas.
The empathy imperative
Empathy provides the creative momentum we need to build meaningful solutions for customers. It allows us to prototype with purpose–fulfilling desires, not just solving problems. If you’re testing an idea, and it doesn’t resonate, embrace failure. Every interaction is a chance to deepen your understanding, so keep listening and refining.
In a world where AI can churn out content and product ideas, our ability to deeply understand and connect with other people is our secret weapon. Creating solutions so tailored, so intuitive, so necessary, that using them makes customers forget a world that existed without them.
Our goal isn't to be a neutral observer or data collector, but to enter the worlds of our customers with a deeper sense of empathy and curiosity, beyond our assumptions and biases. To become so attuned to our customers that we can feel the friction in their daily lives and smooth it out before they even realize it was there.