If you value your user's privacy (as well you should if you ever want to do business in the EU) do not be tempted by this privacy-hostile path.
I fully disagree. Consenting to a usability study means I want to provide feedback and actively state what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and what I didn't expect.
It does not mean I want you to see what I do, where I leave my mouse, what I click on, what input I type -- and what input I then delete. If I wanted that then I would take screenshots or a video and share that.
> I fully disagree. Consenting to a usability study means I want to provide feedback and actively state what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and what I didn't expect.
This is fine for an UX study that conducts in-person interviews as _one_ of the methods. This method is almost useless on its own, mostly because people behave differently when they know they're being observed (eg they do things in a more "optimal way" in order to avoid looking stupid in front of the person conducting the study).
Also, while active feedback is valuable, it can be harder to interpret. People say A, but mean B and then do something between A and B or just do C. Not because they're malicious, but because that was what came to mind when they tried to express something or just didn't know better, so there's an unintentional misalignment between intent, action, and what was expressed.
> It does not mean I want you to see what I do, where I leave my mouse, what I click on, what input I type -- and what input I then delete. If I wanted that then I would take screenshots or a video and share that.
This is exactly the type of thing you (as a designer) _want_ to know in order to identify friction and remove it. Obviously, you track what the user types only under certain conditions. An example would be, a number input: do user always type the same/similar values or increments of some values (isolated per user), should the input offer pre-defined incementors or buttons that just fill-and-submit it instantly (you'd do AB tests to see which work better then), etc.
I fully understand your concern about privacy, but not everything is run by reprobates who sell user's data. Sometimes "observing" is the best/easiest way to learn how to improve a user's experience.
You would prefer not to participate in such a study, and that is perfectly fair.
That doesn't mean its an ineffective method for observing how users interact with software.
I've been surprised many times with (in-person) usability studies where we ask users to perform certain tasks with the tool. It's a great way to improve UX.
Did anyone really need the early AirTable? No, you could just use Google Sheets. Did anyone really need WhatsApp? No, there was texting already. And so on.
In theory everyone should stay far away from building "nice to have" products and only solve hard business problems but that is a super high standard that even most companies that are already out there probably don't meet.
Of course, getting feedback and adjusting your vision is super important though and sometimes a radical pivot is needed.
Yes, AirTable added additional benefits compared to Google Sheets. So did WhatsApp. That's why they succeeded in the first place, their first (public) iteration was useful enough to gain initial traction.
I'm not arguing that everything is useless unless they solve "hard business problems" (which I'm not even sure what that refers to), but if your thing doesn't solve anything at all, it's either entertainment or the wrong thing to build.
* If you're pre-product/market fit, just reach out to users via email, in-product messaging etc. You can incentivize them with Amazon gift cards as well. At this stage nobody actually needs your product so you'll have to do it by hook or by crook.
* If you're post-product/market fit then people actually _need_ your business. Once you make it clear that you're going to action on their feedback they're highly incentivized to help you out – so use the same strategies as above but make it clear what you'll use the feedback for.
* Set up automated surveys, especially ones that are unobtrusive in order to not create a shitty user experience – this allows you to baseline your product's effectiveness which is the first step towards continuous iteration. Eg last quarter we were at 3.3/5 satisfaction, let's get to 4.0/5 this quarter. These surveys are also a great way to find customers to interview.
* FullStory and Hotjar both allow you to view user sessions, highly recommend them as well.
The most important point: if you're an enterprise business, I highly recommend identifying the "best" customers that you have, building relationships with them, and favoring their guidance over others'. Once you hit scale all of your customers will want to give you feedback, but only some of them will have the wisdom/intelligence/creativity/whatever to have a great sense for what _you_ should build for _your_ business to succeed. When you find these customers, get them onto a customer advisory board / meet with them a lot as they will help you in the art of pulling a great product out of your market.