Observation
Watch the touchpoint the buyer actually uses
Markets, in this guidebook, are situations. A touchpoint is the place a situation becomes visible: a security packet, a pilot review, a renewal call, a comparison page, a procurement form. Observation is how titklifu keeps the claude standard honest when memory starts editing the story.
What you can actually see
Four observable surfaces, none of them a sample
These are not market shares. They are places a researcher can stand. Count of visits is a fieldwork log, not a claim that the category behaves this way.
The forwarded artifact
The one-pager, questionnaire, or recap that moved inside the account without the vendor in the room. Note who sent it and what was stripped out before it traveled.
The live review
A pilot standup, a security office hour, or a quarterly business review. Watch who speaks, who corrects, and which screen stays open after the pitch ends.
The incumbent Tuesday
The ordinary workflow the current tool already covers. Friction that only appears in a keynote is weaker than friction that appears while someone files a routine ticket.
The handoff gap
The moment between a champion’s yes and an operator’s first week. Observation here explains stalled rollouts better than another interview about “alignment.”
Say/do gaps are the point of the visit
Buyers are not unreliable on purpose. Recall flattens sequence. People remember the decision they can defend, not the tab they kept open, the clause they skipped, or the colleague they did not invite. When an interview on the decision-maker page produces a clean story, observation is the check.
Sit where the work happens if you are allowed to. If you cannot, ask the buyer to reopen the artifact and narrate the last time they used it. That is still observation of a trace, not a hypothetical tour of your roadmap. Write what was on the surface, what they skipped, and what they apologized for. Skip any impulse to score the session as a percentage of “buyers who do X.” A claude note says “in this renewal review, finance asked for the exit clause before anyone discussed features.”
Field notes from a plant floor, a trading desk, or a support queue belong in the same file as the interview. The friction guide uses those notes to separate inconvenience from a real block on the purchase. Pattern synthesis is where several visits become a pattern, still without pretending you measured the market.
A field note that survives the week
- Scene. Where you were, who was present by role, and what the account was trying to finish that day.
- Surface. The touchpoint in front of them, described without marketing names you wish they used.
- Move. What they did next, including what they ignored. Ignoring a block of copy is data.
- Utterance versus inference. Put a mark between the sentence you heard and the reason you think it happened.
- Limit. Write who you did not see. A missing reviewer is part of the record, as the evidence standard insists.
Terms for touchpoint, say/do gap, and range live in the glossary. Use them the same way across the team so a note from one visit can sit beside a note from another without a translator.
Pair the visit with the stall
Observation without friction becomes a travel diary. Friction without observation becomes a theory of fear. Read them together.