What is a research guide?

The main purpose of a research guide is to clarify how you will do your research and what you need to know more about. Write down themes and key questions so that there is agreement in the research group (and the company) about what the purpose of the research is. These can e.g. be developed through trend- (The PEST model) or industry analyzes (Porter's five forces). Be sure to stick to a few key themes and questions. Long confusing guides are hard to follow.

A research guide should include:

Background material

• The project's goals
• Ethical guidelines (e.g. where do we use the information, who gets access to it?)
• Interview techniques

Interview guide

• Formulation of key questions
• Observation guide with a description of which products and situations you should be aware of during interviews

Processing of documentation

• Guidelines that describe how to process video material and photos
• Guidelines for notes and descriptions of observations. Ensures consistent processing that facilitates later analysis.

Choose your research method(s).

The purpose of conducting research is, as I said, to learn more about your customers. You can e.g. identify your customers' needs, document how your product is used (use situations) and collect customer data so that you can compare, analyze patterns and become smarter.

Early in the research phase, you should therefore ask yourself these questions:

• Who are your most important customers and what are their needs?
• Which of our current solutions create the most value for our customers?
• Where do we lack data to be able to develop new services or products?

You can get to know your customers in several ways. Here we describe four different ways you can conduct research "in the field" with your customers.

Ethnographic interview

An ethnographic interview is an open-ended interview that takes place in your client's or user's home or workplace. By meeting the customer on her home turf, you get a deeper insight into her everyday life and needs, the opportunity to observe a usage situation and to ask about her everyday life in a concrete way.

However, ethnographic interviews can be difficult and should be conducted by experienced researchers who can keep the conversation moving and relevant for 1-2 hours.

An ethnographic interview does not follow a strict structure, so you must be willing to listen and inquire about topics that your customer seems interested in.

To document the interview, you can use a recorder, video camera or take notes. After the interview, you note down the most important points and observations. Pay attention to whether new insights or themes emerge.

Observation

When you observe your customers/users in a usage situation, you find out how they use your product in everyday life. Observation can be done in two ways. Either where you are a participant and talk to your user during the observation, or you can act as a "fly on the wall".

By observing your users in a usage situation, you get the opportunity to discover their real use of your products or services. At the same time, observation often reveals differences between what your customer says and what she actually does. This difference can often be translated into innovation opportunities.

Photo diaries / Self-observation

Here, it is your customer or user who takes pictures and describes how she uses your product/service. Your customer/user brings the camera and takes pictures during the day. Eg. in situations where she uses a product or service, or in a situation where she thinks she lacks them.

It is important that your informants receive a thorough description of the purpose of the photo diary, so that the results can be used sensibly in the further course of the project. Remember to also inform the informants about what you will use the images for, if you e.g. will use them in your communication material.

Expert interviews

Expert interviews are good because they give you unique insight into an area, give your study validity and help you prioritize your further research and analysis.

Be sure to carefully select someone who has insight into the particular area you need knowledge of. It can be both a professor or a super user of your product. Prepare the most important questions and send them if necessary. to the expert before the interview, in this way you make optimal use of the expert's time and ensure the greatest benefit.

It is also an option to create a workshop with 5-15 experts at the beginning of your project to identify opportunities and ideas. Alternatively, you can use structured telephone interviews (i.e. with a detailed question guide) of 30-45 min. quickly and cheaply interview several experts.

There are therefore many different approaches to research. Here we have described four methods you can use in the field, but desk research as an analysis of online data (e.g. user behaviour, engagement etc.) is being used more and more often. Often a combination of several methods will give the best result.