Method
From a short feature list to a sitting the product lead can use.
This page is the custom outline of how we run fieldwork on feature adoption in productivity apps. It is the sequence we actually keep, not a diagram of “phases.”
A study starts when someone can name the app and at least one feature that worries them — a reminder that goes quiet, a tag nobody keeps, a pane people open and then hide. We will not begin from “tell us everything users feel.” If you only have a vague restlessness about the product, we will help you cut it to four to eight capabilities before recruitment starts.
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Kickoff in the room or by video
We lock the feature list, the kind of person we will sit with, and what “kept using” means for this app. For a calendar, that might be “still firing a reminder they tolerate in week three.” For a notes app, it might be “used a tag to retrieve something they could not find by scrolling.” We write those definitions down. They are the spine of the brief.
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Recruitment that prefers real work
We look for people who already use the app to finish a job in a Malaysian office, school, warehouse, or clinic waiting room — not a panel of professional testers. Screening notes ask what they did yesterday in the app, not whether they “like new features.” When you have a list of accounts we may contact, we start there. When you do not, we use our own contacts in the Klang Valley.
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Observed sittings
We sit where the person already works, or in our rooms at Taman Seri Gombak if they prefer a quiet table. We do not read the tour aloud. If they skip a screen, the skip is the record. We take notes on paper first so the laptop does not become a second audience. Screens are recorded only with written consent.
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Conversations with people who stopped
At least some of the hours go to those who tried a feature and returned to paper, WhatsApp, or another app. We ask about the last time the capability did something in front of them, not the first. The substitute they used that afternoon is written up with the same care as your feature.
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The brief, then the sitting
You receive a written brief two days before we meet the product group. The sitting is two hours, four to six people, no town hall. We facilitate disagreement. We do not break ties on your roadmap. A one-page note of decisions and open questions goes out the next working day.
What we will not do in the method
We will not produce a single adoption percentage. We will not coach a participant through a feature they have already refused. We will not study payroll or medical records we are not cleared to see. We will not turn the briefing into a sales hour for further work — if you want another study, you ask.
Time
A full Feature Adoption Study takes four to six weeks. A First-Week Walkthrough Review is ten to fourteen days. Abandoned-Feature Interviews usually fit in three weeks. Public holidays in Malaysia stretch recruitment; we say so on the quote rather than pretending the calendar is empty.