Peter Levin

Sociology PhD, Barnard-Intel-Autodesk

Social science, innovation, technology, culture. Working at the intersections of academia and corporate worlds.

Exploratory Research

I have a peculiar view on how to do exploratory research, stemming from two decades of organizational social sciences and technology research. Exploratory work is more than just the discovery and define side of a double-diamond. Identifying opportunities is a problem of capabilities, ecosystems, organizations, and ideas.

Concept Testing

Organizations want to turn ideas into products, and a way to accomplish this is to take “what we know about our customers” and codify it into a set of tractable concepts. Testing these concepts with your users - potential, existing, prospective - is one way to mitigate risks for feature and product development.

Personas and Use Cases

Designing for “everyone, everywhere” is a mistake. Do you know who your potential and actual users and customers are? Do you know what they are doing with your products? Creating use cases and personas helps to clarify your market, your users, and what you are trying to accomplish with your products and features.