We have written previously on the topic of Innovating In A Time Of Recession. As corporate earnings continue to plunge and the economic recovery is still but a speck of light in a long, dark tunnel, many of our business partners are looking for cost-effective methods to get the right strategy into action.

A couple of us, Christopher Konrad, and myself recently contributed to a Forrester Research study titled Low-Cost User Research And Usability Testing Techniques. This is a popular topic for companies that are looking to weather the recession without pausing on innovation. Konrad, our head of User Research, reminds me that we are a design firm at heart. We recognize that research is immensely valuable as a way of informing and inspiring product design. Regardless of economic conditions, we often see a desire by our clients to build highly desirable and relevant products, and to do so rapidly. At no surprise, clients want to move into the design of their product or service as quickly as possible. I’ll be going over 3 main approaches that allows us to bring the voice of the customer into product design quickly and without undue costs.

Internalizing user experiences by conducting rapid ethnography, “scavenger hunts” (a method for deep immersion in the usage of an existing product), or participatory design, designers can support the research studies to empathize with users early on. This isn’t anything new, but it’s an important idea to continually practice both internally and with the client’s team. In one of our previous projects, we worked on a mobile mapping application and thought to ourselves, “how well does each device truly help people get around?” We could look at spec sheets and also ask people about what they thought was troubling them, but in reality we can’t always rely on just what they say. Instead, we devised a game that involved both our client’s design team and us. Each team was given a mobile device to complete a set of tasks that a majority of individuals would face on a daily basis. In essence, we had ourselves a scavenger hunt. Exciting, right? We thought so. Plus it was a gorgeous day in Seattle. But I digress. The game turned out very successful with everyone feeling very much in tune with how the different approaches to each device translated into pain points or pleasures. For extra credit, we turned the activity into a comic book that we shared with our client as a means to communicate not only the process, but the outcome as well.

Continually evolving a product design through rapid concept value testing, RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation) and inexpensive remote testing methods. These approaches have big implications for cost savings (not to mention headaches). In a previous project, one of our researchers conducted 8 remote interviews with individuals around the globe including Chile, Denmark and Texas using Microsoft’s Live Meeting application. While UserVue is another application we have found great successful using, Live Meeting enabled us to communicate remotely internationally. Here’s how this saves money if you haven’t already guessed: airfare, hotel stay, food, transportation, transit time and of course, entertainment. Now take that value and multiply is by the number of people you need to run a study. Then on top of that include the cost of having your client send a representative as well. And, if the produce team could not attend the live session, the digital recording of the session facilitates viewing later. Video montages can be done simply with free tools such as Windows Movie Maker or iMovie. Combine that with a Creative Commons licensed track from Jamendo and you have a beautiful voice-of-the-customer video.

Finally, the great thing about remote studies is that they’re part of a greener practice in our field. One less person driving, flying and more driving. Instead it’s going about business as usual and getting things done quickly, effectively and properly.

Defining product strategy. In addition to understanding user needs quickly and efficiently, we apply the same thinking into our research and analysis methods to understand business models and product strategy issues. In the past, I have primarily focused on tying our strategy and research services to design projects. The recession, however, is increasing demand for these services as standalone offerings.

We have found we can go a long way by conducting a thorough inventory of existing market research and free (and often wonderful) Internet resources, followed by market opportunity analysis and strategy workshops.

We are constantly thinking about ways we can adapt our methods based on the climates changes, both economically, and also technologically. It’s not only saving our business partner’s money, but also our own operational expenses. It pays off for both parties to find leaner and more effective means of getting to the right design strategy so that energy can be focused on making the implementation of the design perfect. Leave your comments below on examples you have to share on adapting research techniques in ways that keep the research agile and the design moving forward.