In-depth explanation: Four Misunderstandings in Internet product user survey

Most practitioners in the Internet industry are often confused about their work. The report has been written and the data has been analyzed a lot, but I feel that it is not helpful to the actual operation of the product. Even the analysis results are greatly different from the actual situation. In fact, user research is not an emerging field. In many traditional industries, user research has played a huge role in the development of the industry.

There are four main misunderstandings in the research on Internet product users. The research on Internet users in the Internet industry is actually very different from that in traditional industries, however, many of our researchers have actually followed the concepts and methods of traditional market research, and the results are not very effective. Here, I have summarized several common mistakes and hope to serve as a reference for users who are engaged in the Internet industry.

　　 Misunderstanding 1: Implement User segmentation and user profiling without a destination

This is actually inherited from the pattern of Consumer Research on FMCG. In qualitative and quantitative ways, we divide our users into one or more types of groups, and find their typical features, such as male, 25 ~ 24 years old, earning 4000 ~ 5000 Yuan ...... The FMCG industry has some value in doing such research, because the product homogeneity in this industry is serious, products of different companies on the market, or products of different sub-brands of the same company, there is actually no big difference in functionality, and it is difficult for anyone to monopolize the entire market.

Products in traditional industries need to find their own market position and enhance their position in this position through advertising, price, and other means. At this time, it is very important to find a subdivided user group.

There is basically no cost or pricing problem for Internet products, and the main difference lies in the user experience. The quality of user experience is basically a unified standard, and there will be no major changes due to different groups. Therefore, it does not really make much sense to subscribe to users or to profile groups.

Even so, a large number of Internet enterprise user research teams (including their market research vendors) are still taking user segmentation and user portraits as an important task of their own, writing a large number of exquisite and rich user profile reports, but the results of these reports cannot be used at all.

　　 Misunderstanding 2: Research on Loyal users as core users

What are core users? Different Internet companies have different definitions. Considering the ease of operation, many companies will take Loyal users or active users of their products as their core users for research. Believe that these Loyal users are the basis of product dependencies. In many cases, this assumption is correct.

In traditional industries, it is common to conduct in-depth research on Loyal users, find their common characteristics, and then promote products in similar groups to expand the scale of Loyal users.

In the Internet industry, Loyal users may only be inert users for products, especially those in the recovery period. The only reason they are still using this product may be that they are "too lazy" to change to a better product. At this time, their characteristics do not represent the needs and development trends of the market. On the other hand, non-Loyal users are especially sensitive to product cognition and should be the objects of special attention of product teams.

　　 Misunderstanding 3: Research on existing users as target users

If the product grows naturally, existing users are the target users of the product. However, many products, due to marketing pull and other reasons, although the number of users is very large, but the user activity is not high. At this time, it is likely that these users are not the target users of the product. They have no need for products, but are forced to or inadvertently use them, and conduct research on them to find that they do not have any valuable ideas.

In traditional industries, if you find that the existing users and target users are inconsistent, you can change the product positioning to better meet the needs of existing users.

It may be difficult to use Internet products. Because you may not understand what the user wants, nor can you adjust your own products to meet the needs of existing users. The determination of target Internet users should be determined in the product concept period. After understanding what users have such requirements, we can develop products in a targeted manner, in the subsequent product iteration process, we always grasp the needs of target users, and the marketing work should be carried out to target users as much as possible.

At present, the reason why many products are launched is not to see that there are user needs, but to see that there are similar products in the market that have done a good job. I also want to try it and then develop it. After the launch of the market, it was found that the effect was not good. If the target user did not buy an account, the function was constantly changed. The result was still hitting the wall and finally exited the market.

　　 Misunderstanding 4: attach importance to user opinions and despise user behavior

When considering product features, users often do not think about the difficulty of implementation, or even whether this feature can satisfy their own needs after it is launched. If you directly ask the user for their opinions, they may say a lot. If the product manager completes the work, the product will not be used.

Users' Opinions are valued in surveys in traditional industries because it is difficult to observe and record user behavior and the obtained data is not accurate.

In the Internet industry, user behavior paths can be completely stored for analysis by researchers. On the one hand, we need to mine the user log data of existing products, and on the other hand, we should try to simulate the real use environment of users in special user surveys to observe their behavior in using related products. The requirement for researchers is that they can design research scenarios and assume what is worth observing; on the other hand, they should be able to observe valuable points from the details of user behavior, for example, if the page remains for a long time, is there a lot of content? Or is the content not found?

　　

In-depth explanation: Four Misunderstandings in Internet product user survey