PROJECT PAUSED. Any book pre-orders should have been refunded, so please contact me if you did not receive a refund! [angelaognev at gmail] I am not working on this book right now, and will revisit it when I can make it more practical and habit-forming. Thank you for all of your support, critique, and challenges so far!

Why am I writing this book?

I've had sweaty palms when interviewing strangers and I've put ideas out there to be rejected. I've experienced the raw dedication needed to understand customers and the pain of not knowing what people want. Those are still challenges for me.

When I workshop or mentor, I find myself asking participants the same powerful questions, citing the same counterintuitive research, or suggesting the same awesome frameworks.

I'm writing to put all our tools and research findings in one place, create useful flowcharts... I'm writing to learn more to add to the toolbook, and to tie it all together.

Let's do this!
Angela

Why support this book?

Wait! Let's take a step back...

Why create things people want?

People will use things to solve problems -- but what people like, value, and share about are the things that they deeply want. “Things people want" usually feel like... a custom fit, a life-changer, an intuitive decision, the best solution, an experience, or even, a part of their identity.

When a product or service is a good fit for a group of people, current customers tend to introduce new ones. Creating what people want is a way to add value to our customer's lives, as well as to our brand, product, purpose, and bottom-line.

How do we know what people want?

Well, we start by understanding “people" and how they “want." Then, we take our insights about our specific customers and turn them into actions or tests! Sounds simple, right? It's not -- that's where you come in.

This book tackles the 3 big challenges in understanding customers:

1. People are complex. We know quite a lot about people, but this information is spread out.

2. Talking to customers is crucial, but sometimes intimidating, time-consuming, or misleading.

3. We end up with too many data points, insights, and ideas.

How will we tackle those challenges?

In short, by getting practical with findings from the social sciences (psychology, economics, sociology, ethnography); putting tools from design thinking, user experience, and lean methodology side-by-side; by gathering best practices, then identifying specific challenges; by figuring out HOW to distill insights and prioritise actions, and taking action.

Interested? Your support would be awesome!

Make this happen and get a "book book". Better yet, get the "audio crashcourse" for song-length run throughs; get "headshots" or "beautiful candids" because... it's time, isn't it?

Why wait to explore? Let's get started now.

1. People are complex. We know quite a lot about people, but this information is spread out.

PROBLEM: People are emotional and logical, future-planning and impulsive. How do people decide what to buy? What do they value the most? What frustrates them? What do they notice and what experiences do they remember?

SOLUTION: Let's start with the big picture, then get specific. We'll bring together insights from social sciences like psychology and economics, and newer fields like design thinking and experience design (UX, CX) -- we'll combine qualitative and quantitative, the emotional and logical, the surprising and “of course"-triggering, the research experiments and cultural comparisons.

Here's a quick example! Why do we choose to buy some things and ignore others? Not just because of money and function, but because of values. Let's apply the Values Circumplex (via Schwartz, positive psychology)!

Understand people through the perspective of...

Design Thinking Methodology: to find and solve the root, human problem
Lean Methodology: to build and grow in uncertain condition
User Experience Design: to build for greater ease and flow
Customer Experience Design: to be intentional with touchpoints throughout

Psychology, to untangle action from belief, identity from aspiration
Sociology, to uncover how a person's demographic relates to who they are
Ethnography, to capture culture vividly and without assumption
Kinesics, to hear what is not said via nuances in body language
Behavioral economics, to predict and simplify decision points
Statistics, to measure and make sense of all that is quantifiable
Economics, to see the big picture of business and adding value

Let's start with how things fit together, then choose where to dive in.

2. Talking to customers is crucial, but sometimes intimidating, time-consuming, or misleading.

PROBLEM: We hear from companies, whether failures or brilliant successes, that talking to customers is the most important thing. It lets us know what problem to solve, what product to launch, what copy to tweak, and what feature to kill.

SOLUTION: Let's dissect why we've been hesitant or afraid of talking to customers, and choose what to do about it. We'll start with fast wins and work where we're comfortable.

SOLUTION: We'll get hands-on with the best practices in a dozen interview methods. We'll bring in flowcharts to visualise possible interview flows; we'll use frameworks to organise what we've heard and go deeper.

Here's a quick example! What challenges do we face when thinking about interviewing customers, and how can we overcome them? From personal and common experience.

3. We end up with too many data points, insights, and ideas.

PROBLEM: Even in this book, we'll explore a lot of new wisdom, and understand how to get from data to information to insight to action. But all that is useless if we don't have a way of prioritising and taking action.

SOLUTION: So, we'll prioritise and turn insight into action. We'll try on a few ways of ranking importance, and learn how to measure success. We'll understand how information becomes useful and apply strategies to do so.

SOLUTION: We'll look at the kinds of tools we have and why or when best to use them. We will balance the qualitative and quantitative, what's happening and what's causing, the how to and the why.

Here's a quick example! How do we take action on data?

Customerology: An Introvert's Guide to Creating Things People Want is your “one stop" toolbook for understanding customers (potential or current)!

What you've just read the basic outline of the book (a more detailed, working table of contexts is below.) The book will be made of a hundred 4-5 page chapters -- deep and to-the-point.

This book bridges the gaps between wanting to learn about customers and actually learning about them... between knowing how customers behave and being able to act on those insights. It'll give you context for understanding people, distill research findings and make them practical, tools, when and why to use them, and what to do with what you've learned.

This is the toolbook for pragmatic, insatiably curious folks.

A few actionable insights [PDF]:

When do KPIs hurt your business? 4 common ways, and what to do about them

The psychology behind a good user experience

How to distill thoughts into actionable insights [in images]

(Expanded) Disciplines & Tools They Inspire*

* working list of tools

I hope this list inspires you to google! Understand people through the perspective of...

Design Thinking Methodology: to find and solve the root, human problem

What is design? (On intentionality, function, and emotion)
A better question (On how to redefine the design prompt)
Ask “why" to get to the root; ask “how" to get specific (On powerful questions)
Parallel universe (On the power of metaphors and analogous situations)
Quick, effective ideation (On brainstorms, mindmaps, and creativity)
Same action, different reasons (On personas and grouping by motivation)
Bias toward action (On testing parts and assumptions)
For visual learners (On using cameras and video in the process)
There's no magic (On testing functionality without coding anything)
They are just trying to help (On organising and making sense of feedback)
Say, do, think, feel (On empathy and storytelling for rational people)
Incremental versus disruptive innovation (On problem-solving mindsets)

Lean Methodology: to build and grow in uncertain conditions

Just use what you have (On prototyping with various materials)
Zoom in (On uncovering assumptions and creating hypotheses)
Minimum Viable Everything (On testing and improving ideas with few resources)
You're the first to know (On running a closed alpha test)
Minimum Desireable Product (the people-first valuable experience test)

User Experience Design: to build for greater ease and flow

What's a great experience? (On what simple and intuitive mean, specifically)
Does the business provide what users need? (On the money side of good UX)
Designing by reduction (On simplicity and its hard parts)
First 5 seconds, first 5 minutes (On impressions and desired actions)
Why do you have a website? (On trust, convenience, and driving action)
Write the press release and FAQ first (On building new features and feature creep)
Isn't design about looking cool? (On when aesthetics are useful or harmful)
Are some users more important than others? (On the funnel from impression to purchase)
That stage in your life (On supporting users through the user lifecycle)
What's better, A or B? (On A/B testing and what's testable)
Why did the chicken cross the pagebreak? (On measuring clicks and page flow)
I see you click, but what do you think? (On interview techniques and task ideas)
And now, with cats! (On provoking laughter and smiles with your interface)

Customer Experience Design: to be intentional with touchpoints throughout

Influencing behaviour or just improve satisfaction (On the purpose of CXD)
A whole new world of experience (On the gamut of touchpoints and prioritising)
Lights, camera, confetti explosion! (On setting the desired experience)
Mr. and Ms. Right (On recruiting and screening people to interview)
Why interviewing doesn't always work, and what to do about it (On biases in play)
Yes, but why? (On getting down to what customers are really trying to do)
I can read minds (On creating self-awareness in your interviewee and yourself)
Let unreasonable expectations drive your innovation (On challenging norms)
No such thing as a free lunch (On the downside of giving out value for cheap)
Pain points (On end-to-end experience and journey mapping)
Seductive copywriting (On communicating in the customer's own language)
Singing through the noise (On the emotional value of brands)
Uh oh! (On what can be learned from customer support)
Delivering happiness (On anticipating needs and customer service)

Psychology, to untangle action from belief, identity from aspiration

What gets you out of bed in the morning? (On motivation and happiness)
Why do you buy what you buy? (On consumption and identity)
Tell me what you want, what you really, really want (On hierarchy of needs)
There are only two kinds of people in the world… (On personality)
Did you see that gorilla!? (On perception and capturing attention)
Who “should" you be, and what “must" you do? (On beliefs and expectations)
Heart, head, and gut (On different centers of behavior)
Change the world, make a difference (On altruism and doing good)

Sociology, to uncover how a person's demographic relates to who they are

Shake hands, hug, or kiss (On building relationships in different cultures)
Show me the money (On feelings toward money, social class, and mobility)
Back in my day… (On age, life stage, and generational differences)
Like father, like son (On nurture, tradition, and education)
Where does the techie hang out? At the space bar (On online communities)

Ethnography, to capture culture vividly and without assumption

Walk me through a typical day (On open questions and the power of stories)
One of us (On being a participative observer)
Learning to see (On untangling objective and subjective observations)
Close your eyes (On engaging and recording all the senses)
Notice what you're noticing. Notice how you notice. (On thoughts, feelings, reactions)

Kinesics, to hear what is not said via nuances in body language

How big is your personal space bubble? (On distance, touching, and tradition)
It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a microexpression! (On facial expression and eye contact)
These hips don't lie (On how posture and movement suggest interest)
There's more, isn't there? (On the emotion in tone of voice and silences)

Behavioural economics, to predict and simplify decision points

Win-win (On the overlap of value between business and customer)
Do people know what they want? (On choices, choosing, and defaults)
Shut up and take my money (On effective pricing, biases, and framing)
Is this data significant? (On comparing data, between groups or over time)
What's the difference between cost and worth? (On utility or usefulness)

Statistics, to measure and make sense of all that is quantifiable

What makes the math work? (On theorems that let us make sense of uncertainty)
Was this a success? (On setting goals and fitting customer metrics)
How does a robot make decisions? (On decision trees and quantifying probabilities)
What will you do with these survey results, anyway? (On conducting useful surveys)
Correlation is not causation (On finding patterns and using them with a grain of salt)
Dataporn (On visualising data in an exciting, clear, and useful way)

Economics, to see the big picture of business and adding value

Basics are the new black (On supply, demand, and how products relate to each other )
Already a saturated market (On opportunities, competition, and market size)
Scaling up! in theory (On revenue models and economies of scale)

Did you read this far down?

Wow :) If you liked this list, then I like you! These are the topics that really excite me. Also, you'll probably like the book.

If you're think you may never actually READ the book...
but still want to learn about people and apply it to your business, I recommend getting the
a) "Audio Crashcourse" for song-length overviews of each chapter,
b) the "Focus Your Energy" video to get the content tailored for your business, or
c) the "Commitment Device" option for some social/monetary/time pressure to get your worth from this book. I sometimes buy without reading too...

After all this is "PART C: I'm ready to test the tools, what's next? Fieldguides, plus ways to prioritise and deepen" as described earlier.

(We got this shot right as the books were sliding off!)

About Angela

Why am I writing this book?

Because I'm fascinated by people. And I follow my curiosity. I'm happy when I organise information into insights and other useful things. That's the the main reason, but also...

My background is in psychology and decision-making.

I studied psychology at the University of Chicago, and explored motivation and behavioural economics through research at Booth. I TA-ed for my favourite business class on decisions.

I'm trained as a coach and believe that we are each naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. I am certified by the International Coach Federaction (ACC), as well as Co-Active, ICA, and for Positive Psychology Coaching.

I create workshops on user experience, design thinking, and more.

I've never done the same workshop twice. I'm a co-founder of Orange Hive (friendly, pragmatic design), Cut The Small Talk conversations and conference on crucial but taboo topics, and HTML Crash Course. Co-organiser of FuckUp Nights on business failure. I am the original Chief Happiness Officer of Strikingly (YCombinator W13).

During the day, I work with teams on understanding and delighting people via Redesign Happy -- from researching/creating/tweaking great UX or training customer support teams, to digging into your niche's psychology or building an company culture that feels like home.

People know me as the gal who gets things done, and gets to the point.

I'm good at synthesising what's been said. When I facilitate, I help others to "bottomline" and get to the essence of what they're saying. I follow my curiosity, share what I learn, push my limits, and make cool things happen. Thank you for being a part of that.

Excited about the Headshots or Beautiful Candids rewards?

I think we can always use more headshots (with our unique energy and vibrance) and reminders of who we are when we smile unabashedly. Agree?

Portfolio: HappinessIsBeautiful.com

I get out from behind the camera and photograph when you're relaxed. Photos should show us how we see ourselves -- not the strangely tense or awkward moments usually captured.

P.S. I made a little "book" on this topic!