Product research skill

product-research

Product / user research as an operational discipline: choosing the right method, sizing it honestly, and synthesizing findings into governed insights. The core rule: method must match the goal, and an insight requires recurrence across independent participants — a single quote is an anecdote.

Purpose

Product researchers, ResearchOps teams, and PMs running discovery need method rigor and an insight repository they can trust. This skill structures three decisions:

Three deterministic tools:

1. study_designer.py — Maps (research goal × product stage) to an appropriate method and emits a method-matched plan skeleton (objective, participant criteria, guide structure, success criteria). Redirects live A/B to product-team/experiment-designer.
2. saturation_planner.py — Method-based sample guidance with an explicit confidence label: Nielsen problem-discovery (5/segment), Guest et al. thematic saturation (~12), and evaluative coverage. Never claims a prevalence rate from a small-n usability test.
3. insight_synthesizer.py — Clusters coded observations by tag, counts distinct participants, ranks by cross-participant recurrence, and flags any candidate below the source threshold as an ANECDOTE, never promoting it to an insight.

When to use

Invoke this skill when:

• You are planning a study and need the method to match the goal (generative vs evaluative vs validation).
• You need a defensible sample size / saturation rationale with a stated confidence.
• You have raw coded observations and need to synthesize insights without over-claiming.
• You are setting up or auditing a research repository and need the insight-vs-observation discipline.

Do NOT use this skill to: generate personas / journey maps (use product-team/ux-researcher-designer), plan a discovery sprint or validate an opportunity (use product-team/product-discovery), design or analyze a live product A/B experiment (use product-team/experiment-designer), or do market sizing / surveys (use the market-research sibling).

Workflow

1. Frame the study — Fill assets/research_plan_template.md (research questions, method rationale, participant criteria, analysis plan, repository tagging scheme).
2. Pick the method — Run study_designer.py --goal {discovery|evaluative|validation} --stage {concept|prototype|beta|live} --profile {b2b-saas|consumer-app|enterprise|marketplace|hardware|platform}. Honor the redirect if it routes to experiment-designer.
3. Size it — Run saturation_planner.py --method {usability|thematic|evaluative-coverage} --segments N. Record the confidence label and limits.
4. Synthesize — After fielding, code observations and run insight_synthesizer.py --input observations.json --min-sources 3. Treat ANECDOTE-flagged clusters as signals to probe, not findings to ship.
5. File in the repository — Tag insights to the atomic schema at synthesis time, with their evidence and confidence.

Scripts

Script	Purpose	Profiles
scripts/study_designer.py	(goal × stage) → method + plan skeleton	b2b-saas, consumer-app, enterprise, marketplace, hardware, platform
scripts/saturation_planner.py	Method-based sample guidance + confidence	n/a (method-driven)
scripts/insight_synthesizer.py	Cluster observations, flag anecdotes	n/a (evidence-driven)

All three: stdlib-only, --help, --sample, --output {human,json}.

Onboarding & customization

Run the onboarding questionnaire once before you start — it captures your defaults so every tool in this skill is pre-configured. Customization is the point: the answers actually change tool behavior (e.g. the insight source-threshold).

python3 scripts/onboard.py            # interactive (also: --defaults, --set key=value, --reset)
python3 scripts/onboard.py --show     # see the questions + current effective config

Answers are saved to ~/.config/research-ops/product-research.json (global) or ./.research-ops/product-research.json (--scope project) and are read automatically by config_loader.py. They set the default product profile, the insight source-threshold (how many independent participants make a finding an insight, not an anecdote), the default saturation method, and the high-stakes flag. CLI flags always override saved config; RESEARCH_OPS_NO_CONFIG=1 ignores it.

The four questions: product profile · insight source-threshold · saturation method · high-stakes flag.

Optimize with autoresearch (opt-in)

This skill ships an isolated, opt-in bridge to engineering/autoresearch-agent. Only when you ask to "optimize the synthesis" / "run a loop" does an autoresearch experiment iteratively refine the coding/clustering of a fixed evidence set so more cross-participant patterns surface. scripts/ar_evaluator.py is the ground-truth evaluator; it prints validated_insights: <int> (higher is better). It optimizes the coding, never fabricates evidence.

/ar:setup --domain custom --name insight-synthesis \
  --target observations.json \
  --eval "python3 ar_evaluator.py --target observations.json" \
  --metric validated_insights --direction higher
/ar:loop custom/insight-synthesis

Isolated: no hard dependency — autoresearch runs only on demand, and the loop edits observations.json, never the evaluator.

References

• references/research_methods_canon.md — Portigal Interviewing Users; Christensen/Ulwick JTBD; Rohrer's UX-research methods landscape (NN/g); Sauro & Lewis Quantifying the User Experience; Goodman/Kuniavsky.
• references/sampling_and_saturation.md — Nielsen "test with 5 users"; Guest, Bunce & Johnson saturation; Faulkner on more-than-5; Sauro usability sample size; Braun & Clarke thematic analysis.
• references/repository_and_synthesis.md — ResearchOps / atomic research (Tomer Sharon "Polaris"); insight-vs-observation discipline; repository governance; affinity mapping; democratization guardrails.

Assumptions

• Method selection assumes you can name the goal honestly; if the goal is fuzzy, grill it first (the goal drives everything).
• Saturation guidance is method-based, not a power calculation — usability tests find problems, not prevalence rates.
• The synthesizer counts evidence you provide; coding quality is upstream of it. Garbage tags → garbage clusters.
• The insight threshold (--min-sources) defaults to 3; raise it for high-stakes or heterogeneous populations.

Anti-patterns

• Mismatching method to goal. A usability test cannot discover unmet needs; an interview cannot measure task success.
• Reporting usability problems as percentages. Small-n tests surface problems, not population rates.
• Promoting an anecdote to an insight. One participant is a signal to probe, not a finding.
• Framing interview questions as feature reactions. Probe the job-to-be-done and recent real behavior, not hypothetical opinions.
• Synthesizing without a repository scheme. Tag at synthesis time, or insights rot unfindable.

Distinct from

Neighbor	Scope	Difference
product-team/ux-researcher-designer	Personas, journey maps, usability frameworks tied to design output	That produces artifacts; this is method + repository discipline
product-team/product-discovery	Opportunity validation, discovery-sprint planning	That plans discovery sprints; this designs and synthesizes the research
product-team/experiment-designer	Live product A/B hypothesis + sample size	That runs live experiments; this runs qualitative/evaluative research
market-research (sibling)	Market sizing, surveys, segmentation	That studies the market; this studies users

Quick examples

python3 scripts/study_designer.py --sample
python3 scripts/saturation_planner.py --method thematic --segments 3
python3 scripts/insight_synthesizer.py --sample --min-sources 3

The synthesizer sample correctly promotes "import-confusion" (3 independent participants) to INSIGHT and flags "wants-slack" (1 participant) as an ANECDOTE.

Forcing-question library (Matt Pocock grill discipline)

Walked one at a time by /cs:grill-research-ops or the orchestrator. Recommended answer + canon citation per question. Never bundled.

1. "Is this study generative (discover problems) or evaluative (test a solution)?" Recommended: name it first — the method follows from the goal. Canon: Rohrer, When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods (NN/g).

2. "What's your sample size and saturation rationale — and at what confidence?" Recommended: method-based n (5/segment usability; ~12 for thematic saturation), state the confidence. Canon: Nielsen; Guest, Bunce & Johnson (2006); Faulkner (2003).

3. "How many independent participants support each insight — or is it a single-source anecdote?" Recommended: require recurrence across ≥3 sources before calling it an insight; flag singletons. Canon: atomic research / ResearchOps; Braun & Clarke thematic analysis.

4. "Are your interview / usability tasks framed as outcomes (jobs) or as feature reactions?" Recommended: frame around the job-to-be-done and recent real behavior, not hypothetical opinion. Canon: Christensen/Ulwick Jobs-to-be-Done; Portigal Interviewing Users.

5. "Where does this land in the repository, and how is it tagged for reuse?" Recommended: tag to the atomic schema at synthesis time, not later. Canon: Tomer Sharon, Polaris / ResearchOps repository practice.

Walk depth-first. Lock 1-2 before opening 3-5. After all are answered, invoke study_designer.py → saturation_planner.py → (after fielding) insight_synthesizer.py.