Shadowing: A Guide To Deeper Customer Insights

Shadowing is a powerful ethnographic research method that helps design teams derive valuable insights about customer behaviours, motivations, and pain points.

What is Shadowing?

Shadowing involves closely following and observing customers as they interact with products, services, or the environments, to see the actual behaviours and challenges that customers face.

The method captures nuances often missed in surveys or interviews, offering a real-time, in-depth understanding of the customer experience, leading to a more empathetic design.

Preparing To Shadow

1. Define Objectives: Clearly define what you aim to learn. Are you looking to understand a specific interaction, such as using a self-service kiosk, or a broader experience, like a day in the life of a customer using your product? Additionally, determine how you will use your findings. Will they contribute to creating personas, journey maps, or other deliverables?

2. Select Participants: Choose a diverse group of participants representing your customer base. Determine the sample size to ensure your findings are statistically significant. Diversity in age, gender, background, and usage patterns will provide a comprehensive view of the customer experience.

3. Plan the Session:

• Objectives: Determine the guidelines of the exercise based on your objectives. This includes what to look for, how to record data, and any specific behaviours or interactions to focus on. Also think through how you would use the findings, for example to validate the participant’s journey, or to construct a user persona, etc.
• Data Collection Methods: Inform participants how you will collect data, whether through notes, recordings, photographs, or videos. Ensure you have necessary permissions and that participants are comfortable with the process.
• Manage Observer Effect and Bias: Plan strategies to minimise your impact on participants’ behaviour and be aware of your biases. This might involve maintaining a low profile, using unobtrusive recording methods, and reflecting on your assumptions and expectations.

During The Session

1. Be Unobtrusive: Your presence should not interfere with the customer’s natural behaviour. Maintain a low profile and avoid interactions that might influence their actions.

2. Observe and Record: Take detailed notes of everything you observe. Pay attention to non-verbal cues, emotions, and interactions. Use tools like audio recordings, photographs, and videos to supplement your notes, ensuring these are unobtrusive and pre-approved by participants.

3. Focus on Pain Points and Moments of Delight: Identify moments where customers face difficulties or experience frustration. Equally, note instances where customers express satisfaction or delight. Look for contradictions between what people say and what they do, as these can reveal hidden insights.

4. Contextual Understanding: Observe the environment and context in which interactions occur. The physical setting, social interactions, and even the time of day can influence customer behaviour and experience.

Some Limitations

This technique, however, is not without its limitations.

• Observer Effect:
  • Despite efforts to be unobtrusive, the presence of an observer can still influence participants’ behaviour. Customers might alter their actions consciously or subconsciously, affecting the authenticity of the data collected.
• Potential for Bias
  • Observers bring their own biases and perspectives, which can influence what they notice and how they interpret behaviours. This subjective element can affect the accuracy and objectivity of the insights. To minimise this, use multiple observers and compare notes to reduce individual biases. Implement a structured observation framework to standardise data collection. Encourage observers to reflect on and acknowledge their biases.
• Time-Consuming and Resource-Intensive:
  • Shadowing requires significant time and resources. Observers must spend extended periods with participants, and the analysis of detailed observations can be laborious and costly. It helps to focus on critical touchpoints and use a combination of shadowing and other research methods to gather data more efficiently. Allocate resources effectively and consider smaller pilot studies before large-scale observations.
• Limited Scope:
  • Due to practical constraints, shadowing typically involves a small sample size, which may not be representative of the broader customer base. This can limit the generalisability of the findings. Ensure your sample includes diverse participants to capture a range of behaviours and experiences. Complement shadowing with other quantitative methods, such as surveys or analytics, to validate and generalise your findings.
• Ethical and Privacy Concerns:
  • Closely monitoring individuals raises ethical and privacy issues. It’s important to obtain informed consent from participants and ensure they understand how the data will be used. Anonymise data to protect participants’ identities and follow ethical guidelines for data storage and handling.

Best Practices for Effective Shadowing

1. Maintain an Open Mind: Avoid preconceived notions or biases. Let the observations guide your understanding.

2. Respect Privacy: Always prioritise participants’ comfort and privacy. Ensure they are fully informed about the process and their consent is obtained.

3. Be Patient and Observant: Effective shadowing requires patience. Spend enough time with participants to capture a holistic view of their experience.

4. Collaborate and Share: Share your findings with your team and involve them in the analysis and ideation process. Collaborative efforts lead to more innovative and practical solutions.

Finally..

By walking in the customers’ shoes, you gain a profound understanding of their needs and challenges. This empathy-driven approach leads to solutions that resonate deeply with customers, ultimately creating exceptional experiences.