5 min read
Six people beat six hundred survey answers
What I learned from shadowing instead of surveying.
Surveys tell you what people remember. Shadowing shows you what they do.
Why six
Six mornings with dispatchers found the pattern that shaped a whole product. A survey of every customer had asked what features they wanted. Nobody asked for "start from last week", because nobody thinks of a habit as a feature.
Then count it
Shadowing gives you a hunch. Data turns it into a decision. After the visits, our analyst checked six months of plans and found the 4-in-5 number that convinced the company.
Do both, in that order.