Curious about customer feedback's role in product development? ??

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In this Insights Unlocked episode, Andy MacMillan talks with Laura Klein , a veteran in the experience research space, known for her expertise as an author, UX researcher, engineer, and product manager. They discuss the concept of designing for the smallest possible thing to avoid the cost of rework in product development.

Laura emphasizes the importance of building the smallest thing needed to learn something or understand a problem better. It's not about building something small just for the sake of it; rather, it's about identifying the specific information that needs to be learned and finding the most efficient way to gain insights.

"Build the smallest possible thing that you can to learn something or to understand something better," Laura said.

They also touch on the challenges faced by UX researchers and the importance of including customer feedback in the product development process. Many product leaders from UserTesting ’s contributor network reported that product launches fail when companies don't listen to customer feedback, leading to products that don't meet customer needs (see video below).

"The best thing to do is to be building something and showing it to people and getting feedback, not building it and getting all excited about all the details of it," Laura said.

Their discussion explores the challenges of getting stakeholders and higher-ups to buy into the value of UX research and customer insights. Laura emphasizes the need for organizations to incentivize and encourage collaboration among teams to build better products that deliver value to customers.

They also discuss the impact of new technologies like AI on product development. Laura suggests that teams should identify problems that these technologies can solve, rather than just integrating them for marketing purposes.

Overall, the episode provides valuable insights into the importance of customer-centric product development and the role of UX research in building successful digital products.

Listen and subscribe to Insights Unlocked for more episodes.