How open conversations help you to uncover innovative ideas that can enhance the products you’re working on.

As a Product Designer, one of the aspects I truly enjoy is engaging in conversations with people. I love delving into their preferences and dislikes, understanding their behaviour in various situations, uncovering their motivations, and even exploring what might evoke their emotions. But, for many years I’ve not taken full advantage of my curiosity.

For a long time, whenever I initiated conversations with users, my main goal was to confirm an idea, theory or concept put forth by a business owner, product manager, or even myself. Typically, these ideas stemmed from personal experiences or best practices. Adding to the problem, I’d often put these ideas through a “validation” process that was prone to confirmation bias. This all came with the risk of getting a distorted perception of how these ideas would truly perform in the real world, resulting in a considerable amount of time wasted.

How a haircut changed my perspective on ideation

For years I’ve been visiting the same barber named Toni and during my haircut, I asked him about what made his job enjoyable. I expected him to mention something about a specific technique or maybe his friendly coworkers, but to my surprise, Toni shared that what truly made his job fun was engaging in conversations with his clients and attentively listening to the stories of their lives.

I had been overlooking a crucial aspect of my discovery process all along. What if I simply began conversing with users about a topic without any specific objective in mind.

Despite the fact that Toni and I had entirely different jobs, we both had a common passion for talking to our customers. But there was a significant difference: Toni didn’t want to validate an idea or seek opinions. Instead, he was genuinely interested in listening to people’s thoughts on the current topic. This allowed him to gain a deeper understanding of people, their values, and their motivations. Then, it hit me. I had been overlooking a crucial aspect of my discovery process all along. What if I simply began conversing with users about a topic without any specific objective in mind, and then use that as a basis for ideation?

Unbiased ideation does not go without saying

For some of you reading this, it might seem like a no-brainer that regularly engaging with users, when done right, can greatly benefit your product — which is undoubtedly true. However, I’ve seldom encountered a company that initiates user conversations even before the faintest hint of a direction, strategy, or idea takes shape.

During my time at an outdoor tracking app, I frequently initiated conversations with users. For these conversations, it would make sense to explore the diverse motivations behind why users went outdoors. However, often times I started asking about their family life. Chances are that it might be way more valuable to understand that part of their life and how the app should mould around their day-to-day life. Gathering insights from diverse perspectives significantly facilitated our team’s ability to identify opportunities that were previously unnoticed. For instance, we uncovered the significant influence of peer pressure in motivating users to exercise more, and this revelation guided our brainstorming in a new direction of team challenges. Without these conversations, we might have wasted time pursuing ideas that didn’t align with our users’ true motivations.

Conclusion

Why wait to talk to your people after you’ve come up with ideas? Put your curiosity to use and start talking to people even before you have the slightest idea of a direction. Learn from their stories, about other products they adore, study their behaviours, and understand what excites and motivates them. Countless innovative ideas are out there, waiting to enhance your product, but you won’t discover them if you limit your research by validating ideas that you already have.