The importance of conducting user research and survey.
As a product manager, one of the skills to have is empathy. Before building a new product, you need to understand the potential users of your product, imagine them, know them, feel their pain points, and understand their core needs and frustrations. It is not enough to think you know what they need, you need to interact with them and let them speak for themselves. This is why you must conduct extensive user research and survey of your product's target audience.
Conducting user research is a crucial aspect of product management. User research provides insights into the needs, preferences, and behaviors of your target users, which helps you as a product manager to make informed decisions about product development and design. It helps you prioritize the features and functionalities.
By understanding your users, you can validate your assumptions about the product, identify unmet needs, and make sure that the product you are building is relevant and valuable to your target audience.
Additionally, user research can also provide valuable feedback on the product's usability, performance, and overall user experience, which can help you improve the product and increase customer satisfaction. In short, user research is an essential tool for product managers to validate their ideas and build better products.
Effective tools for conducting user research and survey.
Over time, I made use of google forms for conducting my user research and it has been quite useful because it helps convert the responses to an excel sheet storing all responses. I came across a new tool for conducting research and surveys, Typeform.
Typeform is an amazing tool to use because of its cool features that help to optimize data collection. It provides an intuitive and user-friendly interface that enables you to design custom and interactive forms with a variety of question types and multimedia options.
Typeform also offers features for data analysis, reporting, and integration with other tools such as Google Sheets and Zapier. It is commonly used for market research, customer feedback, and lead generation purposes.
The following table summarizes Typeform's key features and their functionality;
| Features | Functionality |
| Customizable forms and surveys | You can create forms and surveys with a variety of question types, including multiple-choice, dropdown, short answer, and more. |
| Intuitive user interface | Typeform provides an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface that makes it simple to create and customize forms. |
| Multimedia support | You can add images, videos, and audio to your forms to make them more engaging. |
| Logic Jumps | You can create forms that change based on the answers provided by the user. |
| Data analysis | Typeform provides real-time reporting and data visualization to help you understand the results of your forms and surveys. |
| Integration with other tools | Typeform integrates with a variety of other tools, including Google Sheets, Zapier, and Slack. |
| Secure and GDPR compliant: | Typeform uses encryption and other security measures to protect user data, and it is fully compliant with GDPR. |
Other tools to use to conduct surveys are SurveyMonkey, Jotform etc
The need for conducting user research cannot be over-emphasized, so before you begin to build that product, know who your user is and their story.