EP62: The four levels of product consciousness

Speaker A: What's up, founders? And welcome to the In Demand podcast where we talk all about how to troubleshoot growth for your PLG SaaS. I'm your co host, Asia Arangio, the CEO and founder of DemandMaven.

Speaker B: And I'm Kim Talarczyk, client services manager at Demand Maven, where we help SaaS companies reach their toughest growth milestones.

Speaker A: All right, Kim, let's get into it. Yeah, so the topic was something that, you know, it's funny, funny enough, I actually was thinking about, like we should do an episode on this. The topic was about the four levels of product consciousness and how there are different levels through which an interviewee, uh, a research candidate, a customer can realistically talk about and maybe accurately describe their challenges with product. So if I were to put this in, in layman's terms, basically, not every customer is created equal when it comes to people that you're talking to about product, about design, about features. And I think what ends up happening is there's an outcome bias that happens where you talk to someone or you talk to enough customers who are like, I love it. Everything is great. It's so easy that you start believing everything must be easy, everything must be great. No need to make any improvements. And I'm here to dispel that myth a little bit because I do think your mileage may vary quite a lot depending on the type of person that you're talking to. And to me there are four levels of this. So there are people who are unaware, meaning they're not really aware of any issues or even like when something is not well designed. Unaware folks are also people who blame themselves when they can't figure something out or when they can't accomplish something. And I've told the story a million times now, but like one time we did a UX research project where we were trying to, you know, improve the sign up flow of, you know, a time tracking product. And I love UX interviews because one, they are so cringe. Like I love sometimes, like I like the cringe, but I love the feeling that you get after like 2 to 3 UX interviews and you're just like, oh fuck, like we, we need to fix this. Like I love when, when the clouds part and it's just so clear that something is so confusing and you can make it better just by like changing the color of a button or like just by moving something. And I know that sounds so easy, but like I love that feeling and I think a lot of founders hate that feeling because it kind of makes Them just, like, want to, you know, claw their eyes out because they're like, oh, my God, how could someone not understand this? Like, it's almost like partly, like, suspension of disbelief, but also partly just like, I don't know what it is, but you. Like, it's just really painful to watch someone just fail miserably at navigating your product. And I remember, like, we did this one. We did this UX research project. And I like them also, too, because, like, you know, you can give people goals to com, like, to complete and then watch them try to complete it. And this was no different, you know, and. And this woman, like, she. I remember she got on the call, you know, shared her screen. Like, we went, you know, we gathered context, so it's a little bit more, like, qualitative. But we're still gonna, you know, give her prompts and, like, watch her do things. And then I know she's like, she's clicking here, she's clicking there. She's like, she's doing all this stuff and, like, she's going in all the wrong places. And I think, like, there was even a point where, like, I think where she went back to, like, the marketing site because she's like, maybe the marketing site will tell me how to do the thing. I can't even remember what the prompt was. I think it was like, how would you add an employee? Or how would you. How would you, like, build a schedule? Like, in the time tracking software? I can't remember what exactly it was, but, man, she was so lost. And then finally she's like, oh, I figured it out. And like, she. So she figures it out, but it takes, like, a while. And it's. It's hard to watch. It's so hard to watch. But it takes her forever to figure it out. And then she's done. And she's like, oh, my God, that was so easy. And we're like, ma', am, you were literally fighting demons. Like, you were fighting demons the whole time. What do you mean? That was easy? And I just remember thinking, like, oh, my God, like, there are people who blame themselves. They just blame themselves. They're like, no, it's me. I just didn't get it. And those are unaware people. Those are people who are like, it's not the product, it's me. Or. And sometimes they don't even feel that way. Sometimes it's just like, that was so easy. And. And they don't even. They don't even register the fact that, like, they clicked 20, 40 things to even get to what they were trying to do when really it should have been like two clicks. Like, it should have been so obvious, but it wasn't. So. And like, that's not you sweet, sweet baby summer child. That was us, actually. And like, we could do a way better job. Those are unaware people. Those people, we love them. They are great for all kinds of other research. But if you're hoping to get something meaningful out of a, out of that, I mean, it still is information. Like watching them struggle is still insightful. But if you never get them on a UX interview, you'll never really know. Like, they're just gonna tell you that things are so easy. So like, if, if you're not doing a UX interview, if you're just doing like a jobs interview or like a churn interview or customer discovery interview, whatever, and someone's telling you how, how easy something is, take that with a giant fat grain of salt. Because until you actually watch them do it, they might actually be thinking, oh, it's me, I just didn't learn it yet, or whatever. And it's like, no, actually this is just a really tough design to navigate and we can make it better. And it's lazy of us to think that this is perfect. It's not. And so anyway, so you can, if you're running a UX interview with those folks, you can usually see, oh yeah, they're really struggling hard, but ignore what they say at the end of the day because like, oh, that was so easy. Like, ma', am, we watched you literally click through 20 different things. None of it worked. That wasn't easy. That was us not doing our best possible job, design wise. Those are unaware people. Then there's friction, aware people. So these are people who, you know, you. I feel like this is most evident on a UX interview. Uh, it can be evident in a non UX interview. So if you're just like doing like a regular interview, but they're not sharing screen or talking through things, these folks are people who, they experience the friction and like, they know something is amiss, but they can't explain why, but they at least know that something is kind of wrong. So like, sometimes we've heard things like this. Like when we're not doing like a UX interview, which is like a regular jobs interview, sometimes we'll ask like, you know, is there anything challenging about the product? Usually folks like this will say things like, yeah, I, I wish reports were better. It takes a long time to like pull reports. And they might even say like, I Don't know how to fix this or I don't know like what needs to be fixed. I just know it's inefficient or I just know it just takes a lot. Like it's a. It's really hard for me to do this. So they're aware that friction exists, but they might not have the words to describe exactly what's happening or why it's happening. But they know that something is like wrong. And in a UX interview usually they're like, you're like, oh yeah. Like there's lots of like hesitations and pauses. So it's like they might not be thinking, they might not literally be thinking like, oh, like you know this button is in the wrong place or this form field is confusing or this layout is weird. But they might be thinking like, oh, I'm lost, but I don't know why I'm lost or I don't really know like what's happening here. They hesitate and they pause a lot. And I find like those folks are folks who, they're interesting. They're. I mean everyone that you're going to talk to is going to be interesting no matter what. But I find like they're really valuable for understanding and making it really clear where the friction is in a particular process. Even if they can't describe with like product or design terms what's wrong with it. Yep. And then there's friction, uh, vocal. So out of the 10 people that you talk to, maybe there's like one or two who are like this and you already know the type. Friction vocal people are people who, they are hyper aware of the friction and they can actually, they can like describe it, they can talk to you about it. These are people who will like point to a screen or they will screen share immediately. Like we, we've done interviews where we wouldn't even be doing a UX interview, but we're, we're doing like a jobs interview. They already have the product pulled up. They're like, let me just show you like why this is bad. They're like sharing screen and they're pointing to things and they're like, you see this like button and you see like this toggle and you see how like this drop down like doesn't make any sense. Okay, so like this dropdown and like this toggle. That's confusing, here's why. And friction vocal people are so awesome because like they, they can just like diagnose a situation really quickly with you and they can show you and talk you through it and what's really cool about them is you can kind of use them for anything. Like you can use them for your jobs research or qualitative stuff, but you can also use them for UX stuff. And I find like these are people that you should flag for like future like feature releases, design mock ups, comps, like what's it, what's. You might want to give them like high fidelity things to look at. So I wouldn't give them like bare bones wireframes because one thing about Friction Vocal people is I find like they're not as they might need a more finished product to give clear, direct feedback on, but they're still hyp. Super valuable because they can kind of tell you like everything that's wrong with like what you've got. And I find those people extremely valuable. I find everyone valuable in general. I think what ends up happening though is people pay attention to the unaware folks a bit too much and they just assume like nothing's wrong. Uh, anyway, Friction Vocal people are great because they can just like point to something and be like, this is why this is dumb and confusing. And what I like about them is they don't blame themselves, they blame their product. They're like, it's the product's fault. Right. That can be hard to listen to I think for a lot of teams, uh, particularly, you know, product managers, founders, because it feels personal. But it's not, I promise you it's not. It's all about like efficiency and what makes sense and what is intuitive and not relying on, you know, unaware folks to kind of give you that feedback when you've got like Friction Vocal people who are, they're invested and they want to see it get better. And that's why we like them a lot. Even though they are a little bit rarer. More rare I should say, because depending on your industry at least like if you're not, if you're not marketing to marketers, developers, designers, like those are the three that are going to have, you know, probably everyone's going to have specific information. If you're marketing to people outside of that which is most SaaS companies. Yeah. Like you want to make sure you find those people quickly and keep them close because they're, that's going to be kind of like your, how would you call it? Almost like your like little champions panel or like you're just like, you know, like your design panel or like your test panel for when you want to launch something or build something or design something new. And you need like really strong specific feedback. So those Are the first three. Fourth is most aware. So these are people who. They're. They have this uncanny ability. They're almost like product thinkers, honestly. They're. They're like. They're almost like amateur product and design thinkers. I say amateur. They might actually have like a product and design background, but they almost have this, like, they can speak to you about product and design on a level that others can't. What I like about people who are most aware is you can put like a wireframe or a comp that's low fidelity in front of them. Be like, they have a better sense of imagination and they can imagine things. Like, they can imagine something getting better or they, they can imagine like, oh, like if it were just over here, if it were here, if you were to adjust this, you know, friction, friction. Vocal people are, I think, do have some sense of like, some sense around this. But, um, people who are most aware, you can kind of include them like, in really any part of the. Any part of the, like, product discovery or ideation phase or development phase, and they're going to get it the best. The biggest risk or drawback to this group is they also are going to have very strong biased feelings about how to make the product basically only work for them because they have such high. It's almost like EQ in a way. Or like, what is it? EQ is like emotional quotient, I think. Is that what the Q stands for? I think these people have like, really high PQ and they have really high, like, product quotient just like, naturally. And maybe they do have some background in this, like, from like a previous role. But yeah, you do have to be careful though, because they're. They are usually extremely biased about how things should work. And you just want to make sure that you hear from enough people that you don't accidentally build something that only works for them that is. Is a bit more global. Um, the other thing though is I think, like, and this is kind of what I think is ironic is some teams, some product teams and like, development engineering teams, even design teams, they'll like, look at the unaware folks and then they'll look at the most aware folks. Because I know that, like, anyone who's listening to this, I know you are, you probably are thinking of specific people in your mind of like, oh, yeah, Christine falls into that category. Asia falls into this category. Kim falls into that category. Um, um, you probably are thinking of, like, names. What I think is ironic is those most aware folks, I think sometimes, like, you get really comfortable with them and you kind of turn your brain off a little bit critically thinking at least, because they just seem so right in that moment, you know what I mean? Like they're proposing to you changes to make. They're, they're kind of, they're, they might even be telling you like, here's how it should work. And they're sometimes our brains turn off a bit and we're like, yeah, it should just be that way. And we're not thinking about the hundreds or thousands of other users who also might need to contend with that same thing. So it's important that you balance out people who are like most aware. And I'm sure there are folks who are like that that you can think of. Similarly though, with unaware folks, you want to balance them out with people who are a bit more like Friction Aware. Like they are, you know, either Friction Vocal or Friction Aware or something. But don't just surround yourself with unaware people because they're also not going to be very helpful for you when it comes to like, working through like tough design challenges or possible scenarios. And they're uh, like, unless you plan on doing like lots of UX interviews, that group is going to be really tough to like, extract insight from because realistically speaking, you're going to have to watch them do it. And I would recommend that, bar none anyway. But you might be able to speed up the process a little bit by balancing them out with like more Friction Vocal, Friction Aware and just like most aware people, people who know the product inside out, like those most aware folks, like they are almost like your other product managers. Like that's how they, that's how close they feel to the product. And you might have a product where you don't really have people that are like that. Like I think most aware is kind of rare, to be honest. But there are scenarios where like when I think about the work that I'm doing on the CMO side, like there are like a couple of people who I think are like that and you know, we don't tap them all the time, but we do tap them a lot. But I think like really like we should be tapping more of the unaware folks and doing more like UX interviews because I, I do think like largely our audience is maybe more unaware slash Friction Aware. But they might not be like Friction Vocal or even Most Aware. Um, so they may have a hard time describing like why something doesn't work, but you can watch and see like what they do and that will be more clear. But you do have to watch them like you can't just like take what they say. Oh, so easy. Well, it's like, I don't know if, if I don't trust your definition of easy basically is what really what it is. So anyway, so that's, those are the, the four levels. I do believe it applies to both product and design. And so someone for example can be like very high uh, awareness related to product and they can talk to you about features and why certain features are valuable and why they're not and scenarios where it works and where it doesn't. I think design is also its own axis. So someone can be also like very totally unaware design wise. But they have a very high propensity for talking to you about features and about how they work. The other, the opposite can be true. Maybe someone isn't really good at like talking to you about features and why they work or even like roadmap ideas or what have you, but they are really good at telling you about like certain screens and why certain screens and comps are like efficient versus not. And then sometimes you get really lucky and you get someone who's like both, like they're great product thinkers and they're great design thinkers and they can give you feedback on both of those. And some are like totally unaware on both of those as well. And those folks, they really need more. You kind of need to put them more like in a black box a little bit. So watch. Like observing them in the wild is ideal and being able to like ask them questions about like what's going on to kind of help trigger them being a little bit more vocal about what's happening. But yeah, those are. That was, that was the post on Substack.

Speaker B: I like it. So is the goal. What if you don't, you haven't done a lot of interviews, you don't have a lot of feedback to pull from. So is the goal. So if you're say you're kicking off some research, UX research or whatnot, are you, how are you identifying these people or are you just trying to pull, you know, your best looking customers, customers you want more of and then as you're interviewing them, you're kind of identifying and making sure that you get maybe a mix. Is that, would that be the goal?

Speaker A: I think if you've never done any type of like UX interviews or research. Well one, I definitely think it's time to start. Realistically speaking, you're not gonna know like what levels each one falls into until you start doing these types of interviews. And the goal really would be to do to do two things. The first is to really build your base and figure out, like, out of everyone that you interview, where does everyone kind of fall so that you can do the second thing, which is as you do more of this type of work and you start incorporating more like UX research into your product design and development process, you can, you, you know who to tap when, and you can also prioritize the feedback that you get and prioritize who you tap for this re for this work based on what your needs are all the time. So if you know, for example, that you're largely hearing from unaware folks just by how I'm describing them, you're like, oh man, yeah, like, we just did a sprint, like just recently and we Talked to like 10 totally unaware people. Like, maybe one was like friction vocal or whatever. Then what that tells you is like, okay, we might need to optimize the next time for a, um, more diverse batch. We are hearing from more than just one type of. Because I think that's actually one of our pitfalls. Well, one, I think the biggest pitfall is that we're just not doing enough UX research, to be honest, which I think is very true for earlier stage or bootstrap businesses. I think this is less true for like, like, if you're funded and, or maybe more mature, you probably are doing like some UX research to a degree, like, I would hope at least. But I think, you know, step one is just doing more of those and I think step two is really making sure you're dialed in to the quality of the feedback that you're getting. Because I, I do think it biases teams pretty severely. So much so that it might make you believe that there aren't any other features for you to build, but it's because everyone that you're talking to is telling you how great and easy it is. And that's, that's giving you a false sense of security and making you think, oh, well, everyone's just happy. But that's an outcome bias. That's, you know, or at least like the feedback bias of, like, this is the feedback that you're getting, but maybe your revenue is flat. And so clearly that's not a hundred percent true. Something is amiss. And I think, um, I think, you know, that's ultimately what the purpose is. So it's really to help founders and their teams dial into who are they actually talking to and where are they at on the scale and how much can you take what they say with a grain of salt versus pushback? To get maybe better insight or deeper insight or different insight, uh, than what they're currently getting. Because I, and I think, I think what's happening is people just aren't getting the insight actually that they need because maybe they're not prioritizing the right type of person. But the goal would be to find those people and then to keep them close because I think you're going to need them.

Speaker B: So then the other thing you mentioned with your fractional CMO work, the if you happen to be talking with some people that are. What was your fourth one, your fourth name again? Most aware. If you have uh, some people that you're talking to that are most aware, that maybe are helpful, but when you sort of scan your entire customer base, they tend to be mostly unaware, Are you saying, okay, it's time now to lean in the other direction. Make sure you get people that aren't as aware. Because you might be, you might be just focusing on the few people that are just really honed in. You might now be building things that aren't really applicable to your entire user base.

Speaker A: 100%. 100%. I actually, uh, there's a client that we have who I think struggles with this a lot. So they have a lot of very hyper aware people that. People who can speak product, speak design, even though they're not product thinkers or product designers. But because they're so close to the product and because they actually do have like a really just natural propensity for talking about this, they end up hearing from a lot of people with like very strong opinions. And so in that scenario what you have to do is, yes, balance them out with maybe more unaware folks. Because sometimes observation is a bit more powerful even if that person can't like tell you why something sucks, uh, or whatever. But the other layer that you have to add to that is maybe more um, validation at scale. The other thing that I recommend too is like if you have a, if you're in a scenario where a of lot, a lot of the people that you do talk to are very hyper aware and like they can, you know, they can speak product, they can speak design. What I recommend for them is making sure that you're seeing the themes across the board and not just taking what they say literally. So you're not just accepting, oh, okay, this person is saying, make this change again, don't turn your brain off, keep your brain on. Because the next step is now to critically think and pattern match and see like, are there patterns across these most aware people when it comes to this specific feature. And uh, is there something that we can design that satisfies most and addresses the biggest problem versus we're going to make this tweak for this one person, hope and pray that everyone else likes it because that is not sustainable or scalable either. And don't get me wrong, this is not easy work. It is hard. Like you, you do have to consolidate feedback, consolidate information and you have to get really good at asking really good questions. And if you don't, you never build that muscle. You kind of just, you turn your brain off. You just kind of accept whatever the most aware person says and then you just build that. And then later you're like, why doesn't product create growth? And it's like, well maybe our process isn't, isn't the great, isn't the greatest. So, so that is really what I recommend. So it's a number of things but if you're in that scenario it, I would say it's a little bit, it is more unique in my opinion. I think more businesses have more like unaware folks and they're kind of just like okay, everyone says they love it, which means it's great, we don't have to fix it or change it, whatever. But if you are in that unique scenario where you've got a lot of like friction, vocal and like most aware folks, I would really push forward. Like let's look at the patterns across all of these. Uh, let's balance it out maybe with folks who are a little bit more unaware and focus on observations. And then I think the third is something along the lines of like we've, we might want to poke holes a little bit in, in like what those most aware folks are saying. But yeah, the goal would be to see, you gotta see the forest for the trees a bit on with those folks. And the only way is to. Oh, that's what I was gonna say. Test your assumptions at scale. So can you run like a survey? Like how can you get as much feedback as possible? Can you run an experiment where you try it one way, see what usage or adoption or feedback looks like and then see like did it lift, did it not? So I would think about it that way where you, you get feedback at scale so that way you're not locked into one person's perspective on how something should be.

Speaker B: Yeah, I like that. I think my last follow up question I had was you had said, you know, okay, when you get people that you know like that uh, their feedback is valid, you're getting a mix, you want to keep going back to them, kind of identify those people. Are these people that you should consistently reward for doing research? Because, you know, we, we do research and often offer a reward and it helps get people to talk to us. Or is it like, okay, kind of once you find those people, those people are going to be vocal for you no matter what. So just keep on tapping into them.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think, um, I think for the, you know, it's interesting. I feel like incentives are amazing. I think it helps a lot with ensuring that your sprint happens on time. Um, that's, that's, that's the reason why we do it. Well, there's two reasons. The first reason is it ensures that your research sprint actually happens on time. And the second is we're trying to

Speaker B: get a bunch of interviews done in a week and we want to book them within that week and that, that makes it happen.

Speaker A: And that's true from like, our perspective, like being a consulting firm, but it's also true, like, internally. So in the CMO work, for example, that we do that, I do, you know, the client, the company that I'm working with, whenever, every time we do a research sprint, we always incentivize because we just don't have time for something to drag on for weeks. So we incentivize. Um, the other thing that it does though, is it does give you a mix of people, almost always guaranteed. What is interesting, though, with like, most aware folks and even like friction vocal folks, those folks are usually invested, like, they're pretty heavily invested in some kind of way. And it's, and it's for their own personal gain, right? Because, like, they want you to, like, make the product better for them. Hopefully it, uh, also makes it better for everyone else. But nine times out of 10, like, they're not thinking about everyone else, they're thinking about them. Um, sometimes you get lucky and you get someone who's like, I understand if this can't be done because, you know, other people don't need it, but it'd be really great if it helped, you know, if it happened. For me, like, sometimes you do hear that. But. Yeah. So I think most aware and like friction vocal folks, you might not have to keep incentivizing them, particularly if you're making changes based on their feedback. Because psychologically there's now a feedback loop and there's an. There's a personal investment being made because that person learns that if they interview with you that you're going to make changes that do benefit, hopefully them, but also the masses as well. So it does become a little bit of like a relationship that you build where you might not have to incentivize every time but maybe you give them like a little kickback or maybe you give them like a, like a holiday gift or something. Like there's a way to say thank you that's not just financial but I will say like in, in certain batches where if you're just trying to do UX research quickly and you just need feedback fast. Incentive like always give the incentive if you can. And if there's no budget for that then yeah, like you know, don't incentivize obviously. But keep in mind that that will likely only attract uh, a certain type of person and it might like you might end up with just like a lot of friction vocal folks or most aware folks. And that might be okay for what you're doing. But just keep in mind that like if you're hoping to hear slash, observe more than hear and like you want maybe more of those unaware or like friction aware folks. Incentive. An incentive might be a bit better because again like there's no feedback loop for them. If they're not aware of something, they can't imagine it getting better. They don't. They might notice the change and they might be like oh wow, that's really cool. But they might not understand that the process to get there is to do the interview. So there's no, there's nothing in it for them basically that they can like reasonably see. So that's kind of why like we incentivize. And if you don't, you probably are going to get like mostly friction vocal and like most aware folks. But just because they're like, there's an investment that they're making and they, they feel like if they're vocal and they tell you a lot that you'll do it.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Um, so yeah, so that, so there, there's a trade off. But I do think you can, you can get away with not paying those folks. But I do think they should get some type of thank you because they essentially become like design partners for you. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But yeah. Anything else? I love these questions, by the way. Good questions.

Speaker B: I guess the only thing maybe I'll just add, which really isn't a question is like what I'm taking away from this is yes, talk to people. It's great that you have this other layer of now kind of identifying who these people are. I think where consultants like demand maven really come into play is when you can be talking to someone and say, okay, this person is, uh, falling into this bucket for me. And now because of that, I'm going to ask these additional follow up questions. I'm going to sort of steer the conversation this way because I'm understanding where they're at and that they're kind of understanding this product in a way that like, other people aren't. And let's, let's use this, let's take this to our advantage. Right. That's really kind of what tends. What's happening. Like when I see you talking with people and you're like, ah, this is actually a great person to talk to. You know, we're not going to take everything, we're not going to do everything they say, but I'm understanding kind of where they're coming from and I'm going to kind of add in these other questions so that I can kind of pick their brain a little bit more and we can make this more valuable.

Speaker A: Totally. Yeah. 100. I do think, you know, I wish we, I wish we could give examples. Like, I wish we could take like clips that'd be really cool. Like, if we ever, like, maybe we should do like live interviews at some point. Yeah. But I, I wish we could give clips and examples because it does sound different. Like you can, you can just tell. So this last research, research Sprint that we just did, there were two people in particular who were like, okay, they're, they're definitely Friction Vocal. Don't know if they're, if they're going to be like in the most aware camp until like you actually work with them a little bit and kind of get a feel for like, how do they think about how can you put a low fidelity wireframe in front of them or can you not? That to me is a true test. If you can put a low fidelity wireframe in front of a, in front of a customer and they get it and they're like, oh, yep, this is weird. This is not. I, uh, I. Those are most aware people. You can just tell. But if they're like stuck and they're like, it doesn't look like what I thought it would, then you're like, okay, Friction. Probably Friction Vocal. Especially if they're still giving you like feedback. But anyway, that to me is like the true test. But yeah, like you, you can, you will feel the difference. I think the founder, for example, was like, whoa, this person has a lot of feedback. Like you, you'll, you'll feel that and I, uh, like you'll be able to tell, but those are the people that you should like. Bookmark and be like, okay, next product release or next thing related to that feature that they complained about, or next time we make a push or change the schedule of the appointments or whatever it is, we're going to tap her because she had a lot of feedback about it. Like, that's the kind of thinking to have. And you, and you, you low key, like, and kind of high key, like, build like a repository of people that you can like tap at any moment. And ideally it's diverse and ideally, you know, you have like a good sense for like, who to tap when. But UX research doesn't have to be hard. It just needs to be organized. And it also just needs to be like, when you have a system for it, it makes it so much easier. But hopefully this is a good framework, like for you to think about who it is that you're actually talking to. And also my hope is that it doesn't. It maybe breaks the ceiling a little bit on like, oh, I, uh, like, oh, I'm only hearing how easy it is. I'm not hearing anything else. But I want you to just know deep down that like, that might not mean anything based on the story that I told earlier. People might actually be struggling for their lives, but they just can't see the product as the problem or the design is the problem. They think it's them. And that isn't helpful unless you watch them. Unless you do the interview and like, actually watch them. How would you add to your schedule? How would you add an employee, whatever those tasks are in your project and your product, watch them actually do it. And like, is it easy or do they struggle for their lives? Because I don't know, I feel like you might be like, damn, actually this isn't that easy. And they're not lying. They, uh, just don't think that the product is the problem. They think they're the problem. And that's the trap. In my opinion, that's the biggest trap ever. Completely. But I digress.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Cool. Thank you for listening.

Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for sharing.

Speaker A: Absolutely. For context, this post, of course, you know, this episode will go out on the podcast as per usual, but I do have a substack. It is demandmaven. Substack. Com. That is where you will find the work. It is a newsletter where, I guess it is kind of a. I guess it is a newsletter where I publish ideas that are a bit deeper than the norm. Like, they're not like, like this is where we, we go deep into a particular concept or what have you. And I, I I go through uh, time and energy and, and effort to like explain it. I even have like a graphic for this one. Haven't published on this substack in a while but I decided to bring it back because there are certain ideas slash like concepts that I really wanna break down for folks that I, that I feel like are really critical. So I am bringing it back to life. And um, of course this will be on the pod as well. And substack is fun because they allow, they enable you to create like audio files of your posts and I m almost always record something like me reading it. So if you don't want to read you can listen and it's kind of like a little mini podcast, like a different type of podcast. Anyway. Okay. I hope everyone enjoys. Thank you again for listening and yeah, we'll catch you on the next one.

Speaker B: Yeah, thanks Byle.

Speaker A: Thanks.