ux research project: user interviews
"Buy a feature" exercise in user interviews
I conducted a buy-a-feature exercise, which involved showing a list of potential features with associated prices to the target audience—in this case, teachers—then observed their prioritization and budgeting process
Overview
Role
User researcher
Team
Me, manager
Project timeline
4 weeks
The problem: defining features for MVP
The Edtech in-development product team reached out for help defining features for MVP, since we had no data on what features teachers want in a mystery EdTech product.
The solution: user interviews with prioritization exercise
To provide actionable insights for MVP, I conducted a buy-a-feature user interview exercise with 8 teachers to discover the features they would prioritize.
→ I achieved this by showing a list of potential features with associated prices to the target audience—in this case, teachers—then observed their prioritization and budgeting process.
Tools
Context
What is a “buy a feature” research method?
Buy-a-feature is a user interview prioritization exercise to understand what features a target audience values the most.
This was the buy-a-feature template we used for this exercise. Participants had to sort their preferred features (right) into the tiers (left).
The participants were shown a list of 13 features and were then asked to sort them (at first disregarding associated prices), into three tiers:
Must have
Nice to have
Not important
After reviewing their hierarchy of important features, the participants were told that they had $15, so they had to prioritize, budget, and talk through their thought process.
After sorting the features, we had the participants drag their features that totaled no more than $15 into the shopping cart.
How did we determine prices?
Prices were determined by total implementation cost. For example:
$5 features would take the longest to implement
$3 features would be moderately difficult to implement
$1 features would be the most simple to implement
Overarching finding
Teachers want a means to facilitate classroom engagement that supports students with varying learning needs and skill levels.
Research
Affinity mapping
I used Dovetail to upload the interview recordings, review the transcripts, and tag quotes which were then filtered into an affinity map.
I arrange aligned quotes into ideas and then into larger insights. Insights were used to determine jobs-to-be-done and user mindsets.
We learned why some features were highly sought after and some less so. We provided a lot of features to choose from, so we knew not all were going to be winners.
For example, some features weren’t that important to some teachers because:
Some features are just “nice to have”, so teachers didn’t have a strong need for them.
Teachers are already able to fulfill their needs without certain features, meaning they can find their own content for free elsewhere.
Sometimes teachers are too busy or overwhelmed with students to consider using a feature.
Dovetail’s transcript + recording view.
Familiar data
When performing generative research earlier in 2023, we found out that teachers have many ways to curate their content; whether it’s from other teachers or online, they make use of what they have and revise their content over the years.
Impact
Success metrics and next steps
The buy-a-feature exercise was necessary to learn from teachers what they needed (and didn’t need) in their classrooms, but we were missing the angle from those who actually purchased the EdTech products.
We found that nearly all teachers pointed out that while they had the opportunity to provide software suggestions to district-level admins, they weren’t the ultimate decision-makers.
→ The next part of our process was replicating the project with school district administrators.
Unfortunately, because of January 2024 layoffs, my manager and I were unable to complete our research.
Reflections
Challenges and personal growth
This was the first research project that I owned, start to finish.
Leading interviews is challenging, so an incredibly useful resource was “Interviewing Users” by Steve Portigal. The book demystified my concerns regarding connecting with users, and taught me how to be thoughtful about the turns in conversation as well as how to ask questions to open new avenues.
One of the key pieces of feedback my mentor gave me after the first interview was how to get better at “prodding”. Once I understood, I was continuously aware of when to do it—I would hear keywords and know when to prod or ask further questions.
Good, comfortable interviewing comes with practice, so I look forward to more opportunities in the future, and I hope that the work we completed before layoffs adequately addresses what the EdTech team needs.
What I would do differently
As this was my first fully-owned research project, one of the newer experiences included leading presentations. I got nervous easily.
→ I took steps to improve my public speaking skills by practicing with presentation-savvy coworkers, and by forming and hosting my own Meetup group, where I took on a leading role. Not surprisingly, I got people-managing skills out if as well.
