Customer Discovery. 3 credits, 3 contact hours

Catalog description

'Customer Discovery' is the term used by lean startup companies to describe the process of directly engaging with customers to explore potential new markets. Such evidence-based entrepreneurship guides the potential for new product ideas early in the development process. Similarly, high-tech innovators in new media, web, software apps, social networking, wearable computing, and mobile devices need to determine early on if their proposed solutions address real user needs. They do this by understanding potential user's practice, preferences and mental models. As a result, knowledge of a basic set of qualitative customer discovery methods is essential for both the lean startup entrepreneur and those engaged in interaction design innovation. This course teaches these methods through hands-on team projects. Students will design and run interview and diary studies, thinking out-loud protocols and focus groups, and analyze and report on findings. Students will explore over the course of the semester a problem domain and gain understanding of customer needs that will serve as a foundation for high-tech, innovative product design.