Don't Listen to Users, Sample Their Experience!

Tomer Sharon, author of Validating Product Ideas and It’s Our Research, presents the Experience Sampling Method in this 2014 talk, listed under TED Talks and Google I/O. Uncovering user needs is one of the most challenging parts of product development, and many organisations build beautiful products and services that nobody needs.

Experience sampling is a simple research technique for finding out what people actually need. In a typical study, participants are interrupted several times a day to note their experience in real time, rather than being asked to recall or predict it later. That is why the talk’s title advises against just listening to users.

Sharon demonstrates the method, explains how it helps teams develop the right product, describes how it has been applied at Google Search, and gives a short, practical guide to running it yourself.