My first exposure as to the importance of infusing the customer perspective into the early stages of product development began when I joined the newly established Honda R&D office in Silicon Valley. I was given the responsibility of analyzing the viability for a new home-based solar energy system. Venture capitalists had convinced Honda there was a multi hundred-million-dollar opportunity, and the product would be hugely successful. In the end, my analysis, which included numerous customer interviews, showed there was no product market fit. It wasn’t even close. The office was shut down.

 

One closed door often means another opens. I joined Intel and started out as a product innovation researcher and established the voice of the customer process which included taking engineers into the field and talking directly to users. I then went on to lead global research teams responsible for bringing the customer and user perspective into the product development processes across all Intel’s key product lines, including the development of the go-to-market strategy for these products.

 

Most recently, I was a Director of Research at Meta, leading a team of mixed methods UX researchers driving research insights into Facebook Stories, the number #1 Stories product in the world and largest production format on Facebook.  In addition to driving insights into product innovation, I was a core member of the Facebook Stories leadership team jointly responsible for determining the product strategy and roadmap, launch criteria, and success metrics.

 

While the culture, dynamics and products and services these companies offer are different, the benefits of integrating customer feedback into the development or ongoing evolution of an existing product are the same. These experiences have led me to the following principles when considering the role of integrating customer feedback into the product development process.