Pain Testing Guide
Design quick, high-signal tests to confirm pains are real, frequent, and urgent
This toolkit gives you how-to steps and question templates for three complementary tests:
- Pain Validation,
- Ouch Factor, and
- Willingness to Pay for Relief (WTP).
Use at least two tests to triangulate. Pair with the Chapter 6 Validate Customer Pain and the Halo Alert – Pain Test Demo.
Quick Start
- Pick your audience segment (one persona or subgroup at a time).
- Choose two tests from the menu below (e.g., Validation + Ouch; Validation + WTP with substitutes).
- Draft your questions using the templates.
- Run a small pilot (n = 8–15) to de-risk wording, then scale.
- Log specifics: last time, frequency, effort/time/money spent, rank vs. alternatives.
- Score with traffic lights (see Interpretation) and decide what to keep, refine, or drop.
What to Capture (for every respondent)
- Who (segment/role): [Persona or segment name]
- Which pain (label): [Concise pain statement]
- Recency: Last occurred: [date]
- Frequency: [X] times in past 30 days
- Effort/Workarounds: [What they did in the moment]
- Cost/time: ≈$[amount]/month; [hours]/week
- Ranking: #[rank] of [N] pains in the journey
- Ouch score: [1–10] (analyzed within this segment only)
- WTP signals: [Current substitute spending and priorities]
- Respondent recalls a specific, recent instance
- Pain occurs with some frequency (not once-in-a-lifetime)
- Pain ranks near the top vs. adjacent pains
- There is observable effort or spend today (time, money, workaround)
Test 1 — Pain Validation
Purpose: Confirm that your hypothesized pains are experienced in real life, not just plausible in theory.
Best when: You have a short list of pains from clustering/personas/journey maps and need to prioritize which are real and salient.
How to Ask (core prompts)
- Recognition:
- “Do you personally deal with [pain]?” ☐ Yes ☐ No
- “When was the last time this happened?”
- “How often has it come up in the past 30 days?”
- “Do you personally deal with [pain]?” ☐ Yes ☐ No
- Specifics:
- “Walk me through the last instance—what happened first?”
- “What did you do in the moment?” (workarounds/contacts/tools)
- “Walk me through the last instance—what happened first?”
- Relative Importance (ranking/forced choice):
- “From this list, which one or two are most frustrating right now?”
- “Rank these from most to least disruptive to your week.”
- “From this list, which one or two are most frustrating right now?”
- Always include ranking or forced choice to avoid polite agreement.
- Anchor recall with recency + frequency; avoid abstract “Do you ever…?”
- Use journey step prompts (“During pickup window… what breaks?”) to surface pains that are easy to overlook.
Evidence to Log
- Yes/No recognition, last time, frequency, top-3 rank, short incident narrative, workarounds used.
Common Pitfalls
- Overweighting a single vivid story → require ranking + frequency.
- Generic prompts → tie questions to a concrete step in the experience map.
Test 2 — Ouch Factor (Severity)
Purpose: Rapidly sort pains by perceived severity within a homogeneous group.
Best when: You need quick prioritization across multiple pains in the same context/persona.
How to Ask (paired with behavior)
- Severity scale (1–10):
- “On a scale of 1–10, how severe is [pain] in your week?”
- “On a scale of 1–10, how severe is [pain] in your week?”
- Behavioral anchor:
- “What do you currently do to manage it?”
- “How much time did you spend on it last week?”
- “What did it cost you last month (fees, tools, lost shifts)?”
- “What do you currently do to manage it?”
- Not comparable across different groups (a “7” isn’t universal).
- High severity ≠ high urgency if there’s no action or spend.
- Treat as directional, not proof.
Evidence to Log
- Ouch score per pain, plus time/money/workaround specifics.
Common Pitfalls
- Using scores alone → require behavior context (time/money).
- Mixed samples → analyze per segment; don’t average across groups.
Test 3 — Willingness to Pay for Relief (WTP)
Purpose: Gauge economic salience. Early-stage focus on behavioral substitutes, not speculative dollar guesses.
Best when: You suspect under-reporting in WTP for abstract relief; you want current spend and relative priorities.
How to Ask (behavior-first)
- Substitutes/Current Spend:
- “What do you already spend because of this pain?” (late fees, extra childcare hours, paid apps, parking, overtime)
- “Any unpaid costs (lost time, stress, favors) you lean on?”
- “What do you already spend because of this pain?” (late fees, extra childcare hours, paid apps, parking, overtime)
- Relative WTP (not absolute):
- “Which of these pains would you be most willing to pay to remove?” (rank)
- “Which of these pains would you be most willing to pay to remove?” (rank)
- Only when concrete:
- “Given this specific solution concept [1–2 sentence], what feels like a fair monthly price?” (Later stage only.)
- Log actual substitutes and hidden costs (fees, buffers, hacks).
- Use relative WTP questions (which pain first?) vs. raw amounts.
- Save dollar WTP for concrete, credible solution concepts.
Evidence to Log
- Substitute spend/time, relative WTP ranking, any price anchors only if concept is concrete.
Common Pitfalls
- Early “How much would you pay?” → underestimates value of relief.
- Ignoring hidden costs → ask for late fees, buffers, churn, waste.
Triangulation & Interpretation
Use at least two tests. Look for converging signals:
- Green (Go):
- Recent, repeated instances and top rank;
- Ouch high with time/money spent;
- Clear substitute spend or strong relative WTP → Advance to solution exploration.
- Recent, repeated instances and top rank;
- Yellow (Refine):
- Mixed ranking or sporadic frequency;
- Ouch high without behavior;
- Substitutes unclear → Tighten prompts, segment better, probe journey steps.
- Mixed ranking or sporadic frequency;
- Red (Drop/Park):
- Rare/one-off; consistently low rank;
- No workarounds, no substitute spend;
- Weak relative WTP → Archive for later.
- Rare/one-off; consistently low rank;
- False positives: Require specific incident + ranking + behavior.
- False negatives: Offer lists with ‘Other’, prompt by journey step, and allow story-first recall before scales.
Scripts & Templates
A. 10-Minute Intercept Script (in-person or phone)
- “We’re studying [context]. Do you ever run into [Pain A], [Pain B], or [Pain C]?”
- “When was the last time [Pain X] happened? What did you do?”
- “How often in the past 30 days?”
- “Rank these 1–3 (most to least disruptive) for you: [A/B/C].”
- “What did you do about it? Any time or money spent?”
- “If you could fix one of these first, which would it be? Why?”
B. 5-Question Micro-Survey (one persona at a time)
- Select all that apply: In the past 30 days, I experienced [Pain A], [Pain B], [Pain C].
- For your selected top pain: last occurrence date.
- For your selected top pain: frequency in the past 30 days.
- Rank your selected pains from most to least disruptive.
- What did you spend or do last month because of your #1 pain? (fees, tools, extra time)
C. Logging Table (copy/paste to Sheets)
Respondent | [Segment] | [Pain] | [Last Time] | [Frequency (30d)] | [Ouch (1–10)] | [Time/wk] | [$ per month] | [Workarounds] | [Rank] |
---|
Sample Sizes & Segments (Pragmatic Guidance)
- Pilot n = 8–15 per segment to tune wording; then grow to n = 25–50 for clearer prioritization.
- Analyze within-segment; avoid mixing groups when comparing ouch or WTP.
- If ranking is unstable, your pains may be too broad; make them step-specific (e.g., “late pick-up fees” vs. “childcare stress”).
Ethics & Good Practice
- Obtain consent for recordings/notes.
- Avoid leading questions; keep wording neutral.
- Offer a small thank-you (non-coercive).
- If discussing sensitive contexts, prepare opt-out language and protect privacy.
Decision Checklist (End of Test Cycle)
Next Step
If one or two pains hit Green, you’re ready to enter Diamond 3: Solution. Bring your top pains—and their behavioral evidence—into concept sketches and early solution probes.
Reminder
This guide uses [square brackets] as placeholders.
Replace them with your own segment names, pains, and details before running tests.
Example:
- [Persona or segment name]
→ “Evening subway commuters”
- [Pain A]
→ “Dark, unpredictable blocks on the walk home”