ZoCo is Just for Digital Products. Right? (And Why We Say, "No Way.")

ZoCo is just for digital products. Right?

No. Nope. No way.

Humans exist outside of screens, in the real world—a place that is messy, raw, and wonderfully imperfect.

Or, as we call it, ripe with opportunity.

We’ve helped clients explore questions like:

• How are IT issues reported in hospitals and what would make it better? 
• How does this medical device need to adapt for a new audience’s workflow?
• Why do so many potential caregivers drop out during the training and hiring process?
• How do we onboard users in such a way to make them high-performers?
• What resonates with a new market segment and who are the key decision makers?

We start by mapping assumptions.

We love a good workshop at ZoCo. By bringing together a cross-functional team, we map out all the touchpoints, assumed pain points, and knowledge gaps. This is often the first time everyone has been assembled to focus on the core problem.

We flag areas for exploration.

Inevitably, there are areas that feel fuzzier than others. This signals a need for conversations with a specific audience or internal stakeholder. Relevant areas become our research objectives.

We go deeper.

This can happen in many ways, depending on the scope of the research objectives.

• Contextual research is a fancy way to say we observe participants in their everyday lives. This could be at work, at home, or out and about. It allows the researcher to act as an apprentice, seeing what happens in real time. This uncovers the nuances of what people do. Things that don’t come up in a simple conversation: awkward workarounds, intentional habits, or avoidant behaviors.
• Interviews are like sit down conversations, either in person or remote, that allow researchers to dig into past behaviors, stories, and beliefs that inform how people act or perceive the world around them. 
• Surveys allow us to prove (or disprove) research findings at scale—meaning you can prioritize addressing larger issues first.

We revisit our assumptions.

Whether a presentation, report document, or visual map, we share the research findings tied to the original assumptions and questions from our first workshop. These share outs include stories, quotes, and the most important trends. 

We co-create solutions.

Where the research findings feel like drinking from a firehose, this session helps teams prioritize their focus. Using starting ideas from our report, we facilitate workshops with the client team to further explore and define the next steps. To us, the worst thing that can come out of research is no action.

This research has helped clients avoid investing in the wrong thing, uncovered critical segments for sales, increased confidence in process improvements, and more.

Beyond this process, we’re fully able to support design and product needs if those are found in research.

‍