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Comment by simonholroyd | Hacker News Reader

My team has done similar user testing in Starbucks quite a few times. Here's my $0.02: If you're willing to be bold, walk right up to people and ask, you don't need to offer free coffee or gift cards. We've found this is a better strategy for a few reasons: 1. It's cheaper. 2. It does not dramatically change the number of test users you can get in a given afternoon. And 3. You're more likely to get critical negative feedback if you dont put the users in the position of owing you for the coffee.

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> If you're willing to be bold, walk right up to people and ask, you don't need to offer free coffee or gift cards.

If many people did this, it would quickly become an incredible annoyance. Have some respect for the commons!

They can always say no.

The option to say no doesn't make it any less annoying.

They can also say "Fuck you" loud enough for everyone in the starbux to hear and for the manager to call the police and escort you out.

I guess in a way that can get your site some publicity, but I gather that's not exactly what you're after.

This. As much as it may work right now, because basically no one is doing it, as soon as it becomes a popular method, it seem to me it will stop working pretty quickly. Everyone doing it will become equivalent to a Jehova's Witness knocking on your door.

That said, I imagine I'd be more okay with it if every time I said yes I got a free coffee.

Aside: I wonder how different reactions would be in different countries/cultures.

In Mexico people try to trick you by asking something for something innocuous, like the time, and then ask you for money.

Also a supposedly common scam is to get personal info such as names and phone numbers in surveys and, later, to use this information to make fake kidnapping calls sound more plausible.

The upshot is that you learn to ignore people who try to get your attention. I don't think it would work too well here.

On that note, I'd imagine that "don't ask for ANY personal information except an email address, right at the end" is a pretty good rule for this sort of testing anywhere in the world. Good point!

The technique is somewhat self-limiting. Unlike, say, email spam or online annoyances, you've actually got to be there in person for it (though sufficiently large organizations could hire bodies for the purpose).

Still: the method has significant costs. That's a good think in the "preventing overuse" department.

To me, what made what he was doing appealing was that he wasn't directly soliciting people. He made the arrow and the sign. He wasn't harassing anyone in line. I think that makes all the difference.

Absolutely. The pure non-aggression of his method was brilliant.

This is kind of silly. Doing street level market research is not a new idea and approaching people directly isn't some huge revelation. There aren't so many entrepreneurs in the world testing ideas that you would ever be affected by this more than once.

Don't be afraid to approach people and ask for their help! Most people would love to know that someone cares about their opinion. There are huge online communities that run entirely off this principle, like Yelp or Quora. If someone's not interested, they'll tell you.

This is fine on the street, but not inside a Starbucks. As soon as you start approaching customers inside a business, they have the right (and obligation) to ask you to leave.

The OP had a table set up with the gift cards, and was only (I think) engaging people who came up to the table. Presumably he had the permission of the shop management to set up on the table. I'm happy with that provided he wasn't hogging the big table at peak times. If you are not interested, just don't go to the table.

I'd hate people walking up to me at random inside the coffee bar (UK reserve perhaps).

PS: to US Starbucks' shops run a tab?

Sure, I'm ok with what the OP described. Not ok with actively approaching people, which is what simon was advocating.

Congratulations! You discovered spamming! It's super effective.

> 3. You're more likely to get critical negative feedback if you dont put the users in the position of owing you for the coffee.

I'd be interested to see if there's any research on this.

"I'd be interested to see if there's any research on this."

Not on that specifically but the concept in general is "reciprocity"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini

In any case offering someone something in advance will make them feel obligated in some way and for that matter even put them in a better frame of mind in general.

My feeling is that if you want honest feedback what I've always done is say "tell me what you don't like about this" rather than "what do you think". That way the person is freed to be critical.

Since you're getting a lot of hating here, I'll just say:

1) If someone does this in my favourite coffee shop, they're polite, and they take my first "no" for an answer, I'm completely OK with this.

2) Having done similar things in the past, it's my experience that - with the caveats above - most people are OK with this.

Obviously, some level of social skill, ability to tell if your presence will be seriously unwelcome, and general politeness and diffidence is rather necessary. Don't send the guy who never washes and keeps getting complaints from women at parties. But if you pass that hurdle, you'll be fine - and as someone said below, it's not like there are enough startups out there that this is ever going to become a major problem.

Starbucks is a business, and people go there to relax and have peace of mind. If you are just asking them, you are interrupting them.

Just put a note on your table, and if people come to you it's fine. If you are afraid of false positives, offer the coffee giftcard after the review.

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