By the end, you should be able to
- Describe a need as a person, situation, and difficulty.
- Ask neutral questions about actual experience.
- Design a small test and state what it cannot prove.
Make the need specific enough to investigate
A useful project begins with a hypothesis about someone’s situation. “People need better information” is too broad to investigate in a short conversation. “New volunteers cannot find the correct room before their first shift” identifies a group, a moment, and a possible obstacle. Write down what you believe happens and what you do not know. You might discover that the room is easy to find but the arrival time is unclear.
The U.S. National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program uses customer discovery to help teams assess inventions’ potential. This lesson borrows the general idea of learning from people outside your own assumptions. A neighborhood project is different from technology commercialization, and a few conversations cannot establish the size of a market or prove that a proposed service will succeed.
Ask about the last real experience
Invite a person who has encountered the situation and explain your purpose, the approximate time needed, and how you will use their comments. Participation should be voluntary. Ask about the last time the difficulty occurred: what were they trying to do, what happened next, and what did they use instead? These questions can produce concrete details that are easier to examine than broad expressions of enthusiasm.
Avoid opening with a demonstration of your preferred solution. “Would you love an app for this?” mixes a sales pitch with a question. Try “How did you find the information last time?” and “Which part took the most effort?” Ask permission before recording, and otherwise take minimal notes. Do not collect personal details you do not need. Give the participant room to say the problem is minor or nonexistent.
Distinguish observation from interpretation
After the conversation, separate what the person said or showed from what you inferred. “Opened three messages to find the address” is an account of behavior. “Needs a new platform” is your interpretation and may be wrong. Note the context, the existing workaround, and the consequence. Preserve a short quotation only with appropriate permission and enough context to avoid changing its meaning.
Look for differences as well as repeated themes. Experienced volunteers may rely on memory, while newcomers need written directions. People with limited connectivity may need a printable version. A sample drawn entirely from your friends may miss these situations. Seek relevant variation when possible and report the limits honestly. Three similar accounts are a reason to explore a pattern, not a percentage estimate of everyone’s needs.
Test one uncertain assumption cheaply
Choose the assumption that most affects what you should build next. If you think a single arrival card will reduce confusion, prepare one simple card and ask a few willing newcomers to use it in a realistic task. Define an observable outcome in advance, such as finding the room and arrival time without additional explanation. Keep the effort small enough that you can revise or discard the idea.
Compare the observation with the criterion, then consider alternative explanations. A person may succeed because they already know the building or because you unconsciously guide them. Record such help. A participant who praises the card but still cannot find the room gives a different signal from one who uses it successfully. Decide to continue, change the approach, or investigate another need; none of these decisions requires describing the test as proof.
Fictional case: a timetable nobody needed
Mei plans an elaborate volunteer scheduling website. In four exploratory conversations, three newcomers describe difficulty understanding where to report on their first day, while the experienced volunteer describes shift swapping. Mei records the difference rather than combining both into a claim that everyone needs her website. She chooses to explore the newcomer problem first because it matches her current project scope.
She prepares an arrival card and asks two new volunteers to locate their room using it. One succeeds; the other follows an outdated landmark in the directions. Mei corrects the landmark and plans another test. Her small sample helps improve a specific draft, but she does not claim it represents all volunteers or validates an entire scheduling service.
Prepare a discovery conversation
- Write a hypothesis naming a group, situation, and difficulty.
- Draft three questions about a recent real experience without mentioning your solution.
- List what you will record, what you will avoid collecting, and how you will explain participation.
- Design one small test with an observable criterion and one likely limitation.
Sources and context
- NSF: About I-CorpsPrimary program description of experiential learning through customer discovery. The interview script and volunteer tests are original teaching applications, not NSF requirements.
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