Determining if there is going to be demand for something that folks have a hard time "getting" is very tough. Surveys are hard because if people don't get it, they can't answer the question in a meaningful way.
For example, after watching my wife use the thumb wheel on her Blackberry, I probably would have answered "no" if asked if I would want a touch-screen phone (takes two hands to use). The survey wouldn't have been able to transmit the "coolness" of the iphone.
I would love to hear/discuss how to overcome this problem. I am facing it right now--I have to present a market survey researching my next product, and I am fairly well lost!
I've never liked surveys because they don't dig deeply enough.
Instead of the superficial opinions of 100, I'd rather have the deep insight of 5.
How to do this? Dig, Dig, Dig. Deeper. Beat the hell out of it. Keep asking questions. Why? What about if we did this? Or that? How about this?
We do this all the time among ourselves when we design and code. We just need to find a handful of power users or early adopters and do it with them when we conduct analysis.
Getting deep insight from half a dozen key people takes no more effort than many other kinds of "basic research". IMHO, it's an excellent expenditure of resources. Good feedback -> all the more reason to go gung-ho, bad feedback -> save yourself a lot of grief later.
How many excellent products never saw the light of day because of lack of demand? I'd do everything I could to prevent that from happening.
For example, after watching my wife use the thumb wheel on her Blackberry, I probably would have answered "no" if asked if I would want a touch-screen phone (takes two hands to use). The survey wouldn't have been able to transmit the "coolness" of the iphone.
I would love to hear/discuss how to overcome this problem. I am facing it right now--I have to present a market survey researching my next product, and I am fairly well lost!