I signed up
for the Customer Insights course because I wanted to learn the concepts and
tools that would help me gain deeper insights into customers’ behaviors and
needs. I wanted to better understand them and use this to make decisions to
design innovative products and market to them. I believe that understanding the
customer and centering design on their needs is the best way to create value for
them. After taking the class and working on our group projects, I believe one
of the concepts that I learned and understand better is customer empathy. Writing
the persona assignment and really thinking of how a particular person feels,
sees, hears, thinks, says and does, as well as understanding their pains and
gains, was useful to really picture what this person is like. Instead of using
the typical segmentation strategy and trying to market to a larger group,
designing a product specifically to fit their needs, it can then be
extrapolated to fit the group they belong to.
The
prototyping sessions were also useful. Playing around and trying to come up with
ideas as a group and then building a physical model of the idea was entertaining
and helped boost our creativity. One of the best days was the when we did the
exercise of taking the two post-it with different information and trying to
connect the dots to come up with quick ideas. I think this would be a great exercise
to use in an organization where the different trends in the industry require
the company to come up with new products that create value for the customers.
When we were thinking about the product we would propose for the team project,
we used the knowledge gained by understanding the family with older children
and the technological trends we know about the smartphone, tablet and laptop
market, and determined the best solution for them. Although this product is not
necessarily the panacea for the family and there are more details that need to
be determined, it would create a lot of value for the family. We have
researched about Samsung’s technology and it is very close to what is needed to
develop this product. We are very sure that this product or something very
similar be in the market in the short term.
Particularly,
I like working on these types of projects. It gives me an opportunity to work
with a diverse group of people with very different backgrounds and interesting ideas.
Still, one of the things that I think could have been better is if the project
wouldn’t have been restricted to Samsung products. The company really didn’t
add value throughout the process and focusing on having to share our
results with the company makes me feel like we are working hard in our class and giving away our ideas for free. I believe that if we would’ve
had the opportunity to work on any type of product we would have been able to
generate a wider variety of even more diverse and creative products. Part of the
frustration also comes from having to create a recording for them, since we did
not have the expertise or tools to do so. I would have rather used our general knowledge
to design a professional presentation for the class.
I enjoyed
working on the project with my team and I particularly liked visiting the Mazac
family. As a Mexican, I don’t really know how an American family lives. I know
very few families with young children in the United States so walking into
their home, speaking to them, and looking at how they live and the technology
they use was very surprising. This was an eye-opener of the importance of doing an
extra effort to learn about the family. If you would’ve have ask me, I would
have expected something very different and would have come up with very different
ideas for products, probably directed to other people. As for the class, I would have liked to
learn more about the methods and tools we can use. I would suggest including some cases for the
class, where we can see how some companies have used or not used customer
insights to design their products and how they have been successful or failed
in their endeavors. Instead of just talking about a subject, we can discuss
about the cases and people can give their opinions and relate class teachings
on what the company could have done better. Although this would be more work, reducing
the amount of blogs and maybe even the final paper could make room for this. I do
think that working with my teammates contributed to my learning. I also appreciate
the professor’s availability to speak with us and clarify our project’s
expectations.
