Prior to Beginning the Design Phase: Embrace the Importance of Leaving Your Workspace
In the dynamic world of startup app development, understanding the needs and behaviours of real users is crucial for creating innovative, relevant, and successful products. This is where the "Get Out Of the Building" (GOOB) approach comes into play.
Advocated by Steve Blank, this methodology encourages teams to leave their usual workspace and engage directly with users in their natural environments. By doing so, they can observe and understand actual user behaviours, needs, and pain points, rather than relying solely on assumptions or surveys conducted in controlled settings.
The GOOB approach emphasizes the importance of watching users, not just asking them what they want. Users often cannot accurately articulate their needs or predict future behaviours. By going out into the field, startups can gather rich, authentic insights and early feedback through techniques such as guerrilla testing.
Guerrilla testing involves conducting quick, informal usability tests with real users in diverse locations to spot usability issues and validate assumptions quickly. This ongoing discovery prevents teams from overbuilding unnecessary features and keeps the product aligned with genuine user needs by focusing on outcomes and value rather than outputs like feature count.
The GOOB approach also helps identify lead users – those whose current needs anticipate broader market trends – providing startups with foresight about emerging demands and innovative product opportunities that typical users might not yet recognize. Engaging early adopters and potential users outside the building also supports refining the value proposition and go-to-market strategies grounded in real-world evidence.
User research is not just about understanding customers' daily routines, pain points, and frustrations. It is also a key ingredient for aiding in the innovation process. By understanding users' needs and behaviours, startups can identify new opportunities for innovation that might have otherwise gone unnoticed.
However, it's essential to follow sound research practices. Defining objectives, identifying whom to talk to, and what to ask are all crucial steps in the user research process. Google Ventures offers tips on how to make "getting out of the building" even more effective.
For those interested, Steve Blank's talk on "Get Out Of the Building" as a strategy can be found online. The Hero Image for this article is copyrighted by the Interaction Design Foundation under CC BY-SA 4.0.
In conclusion, the GOOB approach drives innovation in startup app development by generating accurate, unfiltered user insights through direct observation and interaction in real contexts. It helps teams validate assumptions quickly, revealing latent user needs and opportunities through encounters with lead users and diverse user segments. By fostering collaboration and shared understanding centered on user value and behavioural outcomes, the GOOB approach leads to more innovative, relevant products that are better positioned to succeed in dynamic markets.
- To create innovative and relevant products that resonate with their target users, startup app development teams can utilize both interaction design and UI design, specifically focusing on the user research phase that occurs via the GOOB approach.
- This methodology encourages entrepreneurs to invest in the technology and finance necessary for direct user engagement, as this will result in authentic insights and early feedback, leading to better business decisions.
- As part of this strategy, it's beneficial for startups to employ guerrilla testing techniques, which help them validate or disprove assumptions about user needs and behaviors, ultimately keeping their products aligned with the market.
