Learn.

Launching a successful feature demands the same skills as launching a successful product. The difference is that you also have to navigate around all of your legacy decisions, and appease current customers too. It's tricky. The majority of new features flop. You just don't notice it happening. And that's the point.

Recently my team has been working on core improvements for Basecamp. We planned to move quickly on a range of projects, and we wanted to make sure everyone at the company stayed in the loop. Plus, our company is full of smart folks who know the product inside and out, and we were hoping to use that hive mind to our advantage.

Cindy Alvarez is a product manager who turns understanding the customer into competitive advantage. Currently the Director of User Experience and Product Design for Yammer (a Microsoft company), she has worked with early- and mid-stage startups as well as Fortune 500 companies to make customer development an ingrained part of company culture and product development process.

Portigal's common-sense guide to interviewing is an excellent primer on methods and techniques. The sidebars, case studies, photos, and illustrations bring the information to life. Steve Portigal's fast-paced, ultra-readable primer provides a common-sense approach to interviewing users that's as inspiring as it is instructive.

Sensory Percussion is creating a next-generation electronic drum that captures the true expressive nature of drumming. Used with any acoustic drum, it allows for intricate and natural mappings to any sound desired, from samples to analog and software drum synthesizers.

The problem: It's not clear what benefit I'll get from using [feature] and therefore this fell below everything else on my to-do list. Solution: Find out what your customers are already doing to confirm that [feature] genuinely IS beneficial. Demonstrate the feature and have them explain to you why it would make their life better.

Dear Starbucks, We've been close friends for years. I see you almost every day, some days more than once. I've visited you in over half a dozen countries, and there are probably half a dozen locations in Silicon Valley where you know me and my drink by name.

This is "Genevieve Bell - Director of Interaction and Experience Research, Intel Labs" by MindTheProduct on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.