15A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 2 -

Segment in focus: Students aiming for generalized legislative research

Interviewee 1: My first interviewee discussed how while his need wasn't that great, he would generally rely on Google and WIkipedia to get him where he needed. When asked how that search normally went, he admitted that it was difficult to sort through sources of information that didn't hold some sort of bias that prevented him from obtaining the info he felt he needed in a clear and concise manner without any sort of spin. When asked to do assignments that focused on research from both sides of an argument, he felt that this issue grew much worse. He conceded that there was no other way to find all of the results he needed just by browsing a source other than Google.

Interviewee 2: My second interviewee also said the same as my first. After being presented with a series of alternatives, this interviewee was not aware of sites like Quora Digest and others. They felt that half the time, when it came to political research, they were drawn to issue specific websites that while focused on the issues, also ended up being biased, and it would take additional research to find a site that could portray the opposite end of a debate on a certain issue.

Interviewee 3: This interviewee admitted that it was rather difficult to find a search engine or a single site that allowed for dual-sided portrayals of arguments. For them, additionally, when it came to researching legislation that aimed to solve a specific issue, there were not many sites that listed out where a specific piece of legislation had already been passed and how/if that specific solution helped a particular community, which is an important suggestion that I hadn't really thought about up until this point.

I felt that this session of interviews was very enlightening. While I had interviewed another segment last week, I hadn't ever really gotten into the discussion of what my interviewees would consider as an alternate resource besides the one I'm offering them through this product. I feel that this set of interviews was additionally beneficial in that it showed that my product idea can still be refined even more so than it already has been, and that there is a constant need of improvement on multiple fronts in order to create something people might actually buy. Many of my "buyers" felt as if their happiness with their purchase lay in the accessibility and wealth of the information they were looking for, hinting that a paid option might have some success. Having conducted previous interviews, I can safely say that price is an important factor in determining whether a purchase might be made, and that if further interviews are conducted, analyzing whether other solutions exist out there with a paid option have met any success might be key towards designing a perfect product.