Why customer behaviour & familiar ‘go to methods’ are important?
When working with entrepreneurs and innovation teams, we try to turn their attention towards customer behaviour, not just the problem itself. Behaviour is the only 'litmus paper' that could validate or invalidate that problem exists.
When someone tells you "I struggle with X and Y so much! I loathe this process!" yet he does nothing about it, not a single sign of looking for alternatives, then his actual behaviour tells you that it is not that important to him. People prioritise the most critical goals that matter to them or their family, the ones with an emotional response to them, whether it is anger or fear of missing out. Costly unresolved problems eventually turn into goals; they make it to a priority list. Our time is too precious, too limited to give away our long term attention freely. People do it only if they genuinely care. Here is a real-life example: when people are in love - how much time goes into making a beloved partner happy? A lot. Behaviour is a 'Litmus paper' of personal importance, and it always will be.
Focusing on customer behaviour and how people do things already may give you a shortcut to a solution with higher adoption probability. We've seen a lot of brilliant ideas that weren't usable as a solution to a problem because a single look at the interface or website proposition had their potential customers doubt themselves and their ability to comprehend what's being offered. They've been frozen in confusion and felt stupid because they did not understand it. Nobody likes this feeling.
When a solution isn't a fit to what people know and understand, when there is no typical related behaviour, no other product, object or service to anchor it to, then people won't be eagerly ready to try out a new experience. The only way to overcome this is to lower the barrier and pray that these people you target have enough time, money, curiosity to give it a try. It's too small of a window.
If you want to come up with a solution that will be adopted, then explore existing behaviour and what is already familiar to your customers. Get to know what people do and how they do it now, how they communicate and explain similar solutions to their peers, which products and services they already know and appreciate — use similar, resembling objects, language, approach and design in your business.
