Exploring Product Discovery Through One-on-One Interviews
Product discovery works better when you admit how little you know. You might think you understand your users, but most of the time you're guessing.
Surveys look like the fastest way to get feedback, but they hide a problem: they assume you already know the right questions and the possible answers. In early discovery, you usually don't. You're mapping unknown territory.
One-on-one interviews are slower, but they let you ask follow-up questions. That's where the useful stuff lives. People say things you wouldn't put on a survey, and their tone tells you whether a problem is annoying or actually painful.
You also pick up things that don't translate to a form: hesitation, excitement, frustration. Those cues help you decide if your assumptions hold or not.
I use interviews to explore, not to prove a point. Once I have a clearer picture, I can design a survey to measure what I think I've learned. The order matters. Interviews first, surveys later.
The goal is to find out whether you should build something before you build it. The alternative is shipping and then realizing no one cares.