This second week has been great as I’ve spent most of the time talking to family and friends.

In my experience, talking to F&F it’s a good way to test your assumptions for the first time but I don’t tell them about my ideas straight away -as long as I’m not looking for approval or compliments.

I take this opportunity to ask the right questions and steer the conversation towards my learning goals, considering whether my solution makes sense to them or not without even asking explicitly. Keep in mind that once someone has openly expressed an opinion, this opinion is less likely to change just to make you happy. So at this point in the conversation, I am no longer afraid to share my ideas with them, as I know that I will start getting the kind of feedback I need.

Nevertheless, I would never replace talking to the right people -those who really matches my target audience’s profile- by talking to friends. Yet, talking to people that I don’t know it can be more risky to me, as they tend to be more diplomatic than F&F. Therefore, I follow the same approach.

But, what if your family and friends are the best representatives of your target audience you can get? If that’s the case -as it is for this project- I can consider myself so lucky.

At this initial stage of the process, I think it is very important to have a deep understanding of the target audience I am addressing. Know who they are, what they like, their needs and pains, etc. it is essential to design a solution that is based on objective facts and not pure intuition. This will establish a solid foundation before moving on.

On the other hand, with people I know well, the discovery process is much faster and the information I get from them is much easier to interpret. Also, I can access certain layers of their persona, which would be more difficult to access with someone I just met. Makes sense?

Be curious as a cat.

Next week: I will continue interviewing volunteers for the user research, so I also expect to publish the results at some point during the week. Besides that, I’m planning to start working on the plot of the game as well, so I think it would be great to start sharing some ideas with you… ✍️