By understanding a user through a scientific approach, we can reduce bias and deliver outcomes.
We believe that understanding users should be done through a scientific approach
It all begins with a hypothesis.
The first step for becoming a user scientist is the problem statement, from here you establish what you are looking to solve, with the parameters of what is efficient. The next step is to collect data in all forms, then make a hypothesis, then test your theory.
Trust is the epicentre of success.
Everyone promises, Trust is the metric to measure as a scientist to understand human connection. Trust is the foundation of psychology and the root of fear, the first step of love and the journey to freedom.
Currently, many companies refuse to conduct tests, as they refuse to see the value within experimental data. Companies will also state “I hired you, you should know what to do,” which leads to a loss in terms of experimentation.
A large amount of value comes from experimentation, especially within the first iterations of a product. Being scientific requires the vulnerability to say “I don’t know, but I am curious and will diligently conduct experiments to find a solution.”
Why would we take a scientific approach to building an enterprise?
Science is exceptional at delivering outcomes through testing.
By applying the scientific method we can structure our work to move towards an unbiased solution that delivers outcomes.
When we are looking to improve the marketing of a product there are a few ways to go about it. In contrast, design thinking can come from an approach which is unscientific. Designers sit back and imagine what is possible, they dream up something that will amaze the world and then let the user build it. This works, but only for some of the time.
Even before the hypothesis arises, there is a method to understanding the problem which comes from a scientific basis.
User Science is about saying, “I have a series of hypotheses that I have deduced from the study and now I shall run experiments to design the solution.” The user scientist collects a variety of data and interviews to understand the user from many angles. This approach comes from a place of humble curiosity and wonder.
Interviewing the subject through focus groups with psychological tests and journeying into the wild like an anthropologist to studying the behavior of the human user in their natural habitat are two methods. Another method is to collect data on users from multiple sources like a data scientist to seek patterns, exceptions and anomalies.
With a hypothesis, a user scientist seeks, like all scientists, to prove their theories right or wrong through the means of testing.
Aristotle is recognized as the author of the scientific method, Ibn al-Haytham proposed in the early 900’s that something should be repeatable with the same inputs and outputs. As marketers and product owners apply this method, there comes a belief that we can test and discover independently the best course of action for development and marketing of a product.
With all products we now find the journey of a user to purchase and satisfaction has many steps. We might be very good at developing a landing page that effectively signs up people to a free trial, but the product doesn’t match the offer and there are low conversions. In most cases, our problem is that we have limited time and limited data to make an effective scientific analysis.
This doesn’t mean we can’t find a good marriage of “gut” marketing, or common-sense marketing and scientific testing and this balance needs to be pragmatic about delivery.