UX Mini-lesson: Surveys
Surveys are probably the most used but least useful research tool. It is ever so tempting to say, “lets run a quick survey” when you find yourself wondering about your customers. Surveys result in “hard numbers” to look at, and modern web-based survey tools have made surveys cheap to produce. But as anyone who has […]
Interview with CleanRobotics – the makers of TrashBot
Once upon a time a two friends stood in front of an overly complex trash can at a WholeFoods. A short time later CleanRobotics and their first product, TrashBot, were born. I sat down with Tanner Cook and Grant Halleran from CleanRobotics to discuss the world of trash processing and the design of TrashBot. Throughout the interview we discuss how it is especially challenging for a robotics company to balance the demands of engineering and product iteration with sales and market penetration. We also discuss how dealing with trash is a complex, yet fascinating, societal and environmental problem.
Four tools for selecting UX research methods
For every UX problem, there is a UX research method. Well, that might be stating it a little too simply. For any one UX problem you will likely need several UX research methods to unpack it. If we were casting roles for the proverb about blind men and the elephant, UX problems are the elephant […]
Three startup ideas (Startup Challenge – Part 3)
In Part 1, of the Startup Challenge we discussed how to generate (good) startup ideas. In Part 2, we focussed on compiling our personal criteria for success. Today in Part 3 of the startup challenge, I’ll share with you the three startup ideas I’ve decided to move forward with and conduct some discovery research around. […]
Interview with BlastPoint
Meet Alison Alvarez and Tomer Borenstein, the founders of BlastPoint. Before starting BlastPoint, Alison had a career in building big data tools for large Fortune 1000 companies. Through her work, she came to realize two things: When it comes to big data systems, everyone asks for the same subset of features. Only really large companies […]
Self-study research
Throughout the Spring, I had been posting a blog entry about once a week. I had a writing schedule that worked well for me. Then something happened that disrupted my routine – I had a baby. This is my second child, so I had a better idea of what I was getting into. But I […]
Criteria for success (Startup Challenge – Part 2)
Over the past several days, I’ve generated 60+ startup ideas by following my idea generating process I blogged about last week. When I look over my list of ideas I have a lot of “gut feelings” about them. Some of the ideas seem too simple, some seem too complex, some seem dumb, and some seem beyond […]
Generating Startup Ideas (Startup Challenge – Part 1)
While thinking of a startup idea seems easy in theory, it is difficult in practice. In this post, I introduce my process for generating startup ideas.
3 ways to validate your startup idea without building a damn thing
Embrace the “validate first, build later” philosophy and try out these three ways to validate your startup idea without building a damn thing.
The MVE: Minimum Viable Experiment
Entrepreneurs would find a lot more freedom to explore and grow their ideas if they focussed less on MVP, and more on MVE: the minimum viable experiment.