User research is the process of figuring out how people interpret and use products and services. It is used everywhere from websites, to mobile phones, to consumer electronics, to medical equipment, to banking services, and beyond. Interviews, usability evaluations, surveys, and other forms of user research conducted before and during design can make the difference between a product or service that is useful, usable, and successful and one thatâs an unprofitable exercise in frustration for everyone involved. After a product hits the market, user research is a good way to figure out how to improve it, to build something newâor to transform the market altogether.
It may seem obvious that companies should ensure that people will use their products or services. But even industry giants can lose sight of this common-sense proposition. In a cross-industry study of 630 U.S. and UK executives by the consulting firm Accenture, 57% of the executives reported that âinability to meet customer needsâ had resulted in failures of new products or services. Fifty percent further blamed the âlack of a new or unique customer-perceived value proposition.â
As these executives learned the hard way, being first to market with a new product or service isnât enough. Companies need products that people desire, that fulfill human needs, and that people can actually use. After a product or service fails, getting a company back on track can take significant effort to reconnect with oneâs audience and integrate those understandings back into standard business processes. That means user research, as the iconic Danish toymaker LEGO discovered.
Learning from LEGO
In the 1980s and 1990s, the LEGO Group expanded in all directions. It introduced products, such as computer games, action figures, and television shows, that veered away from its famous core business of pop-together plastic pieces. It opened amusement parks and licensed its name to other companies. And it encouraged unfettered creativity in designer teams. One result was the futuristic restyling of its classic flagship, the LEGO City product line, and the creation of many complex new lines with specialized pieces.
Yet by the early 2000s, the LEGO Group was struggling. Recessions in major markets had hurt overall sales. It also didnât help that competitors had taken advantage of the LEGO Groupâs recently expired patents. But one of the companyâs biggest problems was that kids simply didnât like the new designs. Notably, some redesigned lines had crashed more than others. The City product line, for example, had generated about 13% of the companyâs entire revenue in 1999. Only a few years later, it accounted for only 3%. The lineâs profitability had âliterally almost evaporated,â an executive vice-president told business reporter Jay Greene. At the same time, manufacturing costs had skyrocketed. Instead of doing more with the components they already had, the new product lines had multiplied the number of expensive new components. With sales down and production costs up, the company was hemorrhaging money. The LEGO Group was losing almost $1 million every day. It was more than a crisis; it looked like a death knell for a beloved institution.
In 2004, a new CEO, JĂžrgen Vig Knudstorp, took a âback to basicsâ approach. He abandoned some of the new productsâthe amusement parks in particularâand returned to the core product: the plastic brick. Further, he demanded that designers cut the number of specialized components. But he also directed the company to pay more attention to its core constituency: kids. Knudstorp told Businessweek, âAt first I actually said, letâs not talk about strategy, letâs talk about an action plan, to address the debt, to get the cash flow. But after that we did spend a lot of time on strategy, finding out what is LEGOâs true identity. Things like, why do you exist? What makes you unique?â
To find out what made LEGO unique, Knudstorp turned to user research. Over the course of a year, LEGO sent user researchersâwho they called âanthrosââto observe families around the world. These anthros focused on culture: the meanings that kids found in favorite possessions; how, where, and why they played; and differences in parenting and play styles across the regions where LEGO did most of its business: Asia, Europe, and the United States. They went to kidsâ homes and interviewed them, and then watched them playânot just with LEGO products, but with all kinds of objects.
Through its research, LEGO arrived at a renewed understanding of the meaning of play to children. Insights from the anthrosâ visits had emphasized the way that toys fit into kidsâ storytelling. Fire trucks didnât need to look outlandishly cool to be loved; they needed to fit into kidsâ existing stories about firefighters. Research also led to an enhanced appreciation of cultural differences in play. Japanese families, for example, tended to strictly separate education and play; selling LEGO products as âeducationalâ blurred that difference for parents, making them unsuitable either as toys or as teaching devices. Boys in the United States, by contrast, were highly supervised most of the time. For them, playing with LEGO bricks was one of the few parent-approved activities that allowed unstructured time alone.
Most importantly, the LEGO design team re-evaluated the importance of difficulty. âYou could say,â wrote Businessweek reporter Brad Wieners, âa worn-out sneaker saved LEGO.â In the early 2000s, the company had attributed its failures partially to the popularity of electronic games. But what did kids see in these games? For years, the company had believed that kids wanted a âplug and playâ experience: easier roads to speedy success. So they simplified their models. The anthros came back from time spent with kids telling a different story.
The head of LEGO Concept Lab told Businessweek, âWe asked an 11-year-old German boy, âWhat is your favorite possession?â And he pointed to his shoes. But it wasnât the brand of shoe that made them special. When we asked him why these were so important to him, he showed us how they were worn on the side and bottom, and explained that his friends could tell from how they were worn down that he had mastered a certain style of skateboarding, even a specific trick.â The boys they had met, like the German skater, were interested in experiences of âmasteryâ: learning skills and, as with the worn-down sneaker, demonstrating that mastery to others. Through observing kids play and talking to them about their lives, LEGO designers realized that they had misunderstood what computer games meant.
In response, the designers went back to the drawing board. While obeying the mandate to reduce the number of different pieces, designers also worked with researchers to support experiences of mastery. Models might use fewer specialized components, but they could still be satisfyingly challenging. Instead of aiming for immediate gratification, the LEGO designers drew from notions of progression built into computer games: winning points, leveling up, and entering rankings. Designers also completely reworked their LEGO City line. Out with the futuristic styling, in with fire trucks that looked like, well, fire trucks.
But thatâs not the whole story, though itâs a big part. At the same time, LEGO also turned its attention to a large group of devoted customers who hadnât strayed: adults. Each individual adult enthusiast spent far more on LEGO products in a year than most kids would ever spend in a lifetime. However, the companyâs revenue overall overwhelmingly came from kidsâboys ages 7 to 12, to be exact. So most LEGO execs didnât see any reason to cultivate older customers (not to mention girls, but thatâs a different story). In fact, the company had notoriously kept adult fans at arms-length. Communicating with older fans could inspire new product ideasâŠand then invite lawsuits over the profits from those ideas. But the problem with adult fans for LEGO management wasnât just lawsuits. âThe impression,â Jake McKee, a former LEGO Group community manager, bluntly told a conference audience in 2009, âwas that these guys are weird.â
âAnd yes,â McKee continued, âsome of them were weird.â But their exuberant love for LEGO kits, he pointed out, was bringing the struggling company a lot of positive attention. On their own initiative, adult fans built massive LEGO installations in shopping malls, attracting attention from tens of thousands of kids. Their efforts brought them stories on television and in newspapers. And on the Internet, grown-up, big-spending fans had built a thriving ecosystem of fan forums and marketplaces.
At first, the websites had taken the company aback. Tormod Askildsen, Head of Community Development at LEGO, told Ericsson Business Review, at first, âwe didnât really like it and we were a bit concerned.â McKee and other members of LEGOâs community relations group decided to change that attitude. McKee and his group started by meeting adult fans where they were most comfortable: on online forums, at meetings, even at bars. They started with no budget and no permission, doing âthe smallest thing we could get away with.â Over time, they built a pilot program, developing long-term relationships with a few âLEGO Ambassadorsâ as eyes into the adult fan community. By 2005, they had come far enough to post requests for product suggestions on popular fan websites. In 2009, Askildsen said, âPeople from my team communicate with this group more or less on a daily basis, discussing different themes, ideas or to brainstorm.â In the end, LEGO even hired adult fans as designers.
While championing a âback to basicsâ approach for kids, LEGO managers had learned enough from the adult fan community to add special products for them. First came the $500 Star Wars Millennium Falcon kit, which became extremely popular. In 2006, the company added the Modular Buildings line, a set of complex kits with sophisticated architectural details. Most importantly, LEGO began to take their adult fans seriously as a source of ideas and inspiration. âThey realized they could use adults to influence kid fans, and kids to excite adult fans,â said McKee. Today, the company even launches entirely fan-designed lines.
Besides controlling manufacturing costs, this strategy turned sales around. After the redesign, LEGO the City line was responsible for 20% of the companyâs revenue in 2008âregaining its original place and even exceeding it. The executive vice-president told Greene, âIt has refound its identity.â Between 2006 and 2010, company revenue increased 105%, growing even in downturns. âThe fourth quarter of 2008 was a horror show for most companies,â an industry analyst told Time magazine. âAnd LEGO sailed through like it was no problem.â Revenue continued to grow in 2009 and 2010. In 2011, LEGO made $1 billion in the United States for the first time ever.
As the LEGO Group thrived, so did its commitment to user research. As well as integrating desk research, field visits, and expert interviews into their idea generation process for existing lines, the company sent out the anthros again for another projectâthis time, to develop new products for an audience the company had long ignored: girls.
By carefully observing and engaging with its users, the LEGO Group discovered ways to overcome its most daunting problems. User research showed the company how to redesign its products to delight its core audience of kids; how to build strong relationships with adult fans and make use of those relationships in marketing and product developme...