Research
Extreme User Shadowing
Studying users at the extremes of behavior to reveal needs that average users hide.
Extreme user shadowing means studying the power user who has built a custom workflow from five tools, or the non-user who has given up on finding any solution. These extremes reveal jobs that average users can't articulate because they haven't pushed the boundaries. The power user shows what the job looks like when taken seriously. The non-user shows where the current solutions fail completely. Both reveal opportunities that surveys of average users miss.