A practical guide to product development research

Bringing a new product to market is risky, but the right research can take the guesswork out of every decision.

Product development research helps you understand what customers actually want, test ideas before launch, and keep your product relevant long after it hits the market. Here’s how to use it to build products people can’t wait to get their hands on.

TL;DR

✅ What product development research is: A way to track how your product meets customer needs, identify gaps and refine features at every stage of the product lifecycle.
✅ Why it matters: Research helps brands build products that truly resonate with customers by improving loyalty, demand and long-term success.
✅ Key stages to know: Exploratory (finding direction), evaluative (testing ideas) and iterative (refining and improving before launch).
✅ Testing types to use: Concept, UX, pricing, market and competitor and satisfaction research to validate ideas and guide decisions.
✅ Bottom line: Continuous customer-driven research ensures every product you launch is relevant, competitive and built on real consumer insight.

What is product development research?

Product development research helps you understand how your product or feature is performing, whether your target audience’s needs are changing and what adjustments you need to make to stay aligned with customer expectations.

The type of research you run depends on your stage in the product life cycle. Early on, you might focus on validating ideas. Later, you’ll want to track things like satisfaction and identify ways to improve retention.

Through product development research, you can learn things like:

• Which features customers value most or would pay more for
• How to improve customer loyalty and engagement
• Why there might be a decline in interest or sales
• What current market trends could impact your product’s success

No matter where you are in your development cycle, ongoing research ensures you:

• Stay informed about changes in customer needs
• Identify risks before they affect performance
• Keep your product relevant and competitive

In short, product development research gives you the insight to make smarter decisions, refine your product over time and meet real customer demand.

Why is product development research important?

95% of products fail not because the idea was bad but because teams didn’t validate what customers actually wanted. Product development research helps you avoid that risk by grounding every decision in real customer insight.

Here’s why it matters:

• Keeps your products relevant. Customer needs shift over time. Research helps you adapt quickly so your product always meets current expectations.
• Improves satisfaction and loyalty. When you build products people genuinely value, they’re more likely to buy again and recommend your brand.
• Reduces guesswork and risk. Data-driven feedback helps you prioritize the right features, avoid costly missteps, and plan confident launches.
• Strengthens your competitive edge. Staying close to market trends lets you spot new opportunities before your competitors do.

Using platforms like Attest, you can survey your target audience at every stage of development—from idea testing to post-launch feedback—to track demand and measure product-market fit.

In short, product development research turns customer insight into a roadmap for growth which helps you launch products that perform better, last longer and deliver real value.

Stages of product development research

There are a few key stages of the product development research process that you should know about to make sure you create successful products that are right for your customers.

Take a look at our intro to the new product development market research (NPD) process, summarising the 9 key steps to explore throughout your project:

Exploratory

Exploratory research is what usually happens at the earliest stage of the new product development process.

During this stage you might not necessarily know what your outcome will be, what your product will look like, how exactly it’ll address potential customers’ needs and ensure customer satisfaction. 

This is when you’ll explore these areas and more to find out what direction you’ll take with your new products.

At the exploratory stage, market researchers will delve into data around consumers, their pain points and their general product usage, usually working closely with the Product team to make sure these insights are reflected in the product roadmap.

Evaluative

Once ideas about products and features have been developed during the exploratory stage, many companies then take an even deeper look into issues and topics that emerged in the previous stage.

Ideas you might have had earlier on in the product development process will be scrutinised here to help you understand the value of your offering to your potential customers.

Iterative development

Later in the product life cycle process is when you’ll carry out iterative development research.

At this stage you’ll analyse and refine your product and its features to make sure the final product you provide to your customers is comprehensive and eliminates their pain points.

Iterative market research can be intricate and involve in-depth analysis of seemingly insignificant features.

Things like A/B testing can be done at this stage—that might be testing different versions of a website button or packaging design.

Key summary: The 9 steps of new product development

To make things easier, we’ve outlined the 9 steps of new product development below to show what happens at each stage and how research supports better decisions.

Step #	Step name	What happens	Key activities / outcomes
1	Discovery	Identify gaps in the market and uncover customer pain points.	• Conduct market scans and trend analysis. • Gather customer insights to spot unmet needs. • Define the opportunity your product will address.
2	Idea generation and evaluation	Generate ideas that could solve the problem and narrow them down.	• Run ideation workshops across teams. • Score and filter ideas based on impact and feasibility. • Shortlist the strongest concepts for testing.
3	Concept testing	Test early ideas with real consumers to gauge appeal and potential demand.	• Create simple visuals or mockups. • Run surveys with target audiences. • Identify which ideas resonate most and why.
4	Market analysis	Validate market potential and competitive positioning.	• Research target audience size and demand. • Analyze competitors and pricing benchmarks. • Identify where your product fits in the market.
5	Prototyping and testing	Build a prototype or MVP and collect feedback to refine it.	• Develop early product versions. • Conduct usability tests with real users. • Iterate based on feedback before production.
6	Positioning and packaging testing	Test how your product looks, feels, and is perceived.	• Evaluate packaging design and messaging. • Test pricing and product claims. • Confirm that the overall positioning connects with customers.
7	Commercialization	Prepare to bring your product to market.	• Finalize specifications and production details. • Align marketing, sales, and logistics plans. • Set launch goals and budgets.
8	Product launch	Introduce your product to the market and start tracking performance.	• Execute launch campaigns across channels. • Monitor early feedback and resolve issues. • Track sales and engagement metrics.
9	Track success	Evaluate performance and identify opportunities to improve.	• Measure sales, loyalty, and satisfaction. • Collect ongoing customer feedback. • Refine features and plan future iterations.

Types of product development testing

There are a range of product research types that businesses typically explore when they’re defining customer preferences and prepping their potential product for the marketplace.

Each of these types of product development testing cover the spectrum of new product research, all the way from concept testing to post-launch satisfaction and ongoing success.

And these testing types can be done in many different ways, ranging from small, intimate, mainly qualitative market research and focus groups to large, mainly quantitative surveys. Let’s get right into the different types of product development testing.

Concept testing

There’s absolutely no point in launching a product without being confident that the idea will resonate with consumers, and will ultimately be a success.

That’s why, right at the beginning of the new product life cycle you should carry out concept testing.

This is where you’ll figure out, through extensive research, whether that product or feature you’ve been mulling over will actually give people what they’re looking for- by appealing to consumer preferences.

Concept testing can involve testing anything from brand assets like a new logo or website page to commercial features like the pricing structure, or even as a way to uncover a new customer segment.

User experience research

It’s crucial for marketing, product, insights and innovation professionals to have a full understanding of how an end user interacts with the product or service on a functional level.

Are customers able to navigate around the website or platform easily? Or open the physical product quickly? How do they feel as they interact with the product? How easy is it for them to complete their ultimate task?

These are the kinds of questions you should hope to answer through your user experience testing.

It’s super important at this stage to enlist real consumers who might be interested in your product.

Even if the users uncover issues with your product or don’t immediately fall in love with it, that’s fine. What matters is that it’s useful insight directly from the people your product is targeted at.

Pricing research

Knowing where to price your product is a battle all companies face at some point. You need your brand to offer a quality product at a price that’s cost effective and competes with other market leaders, but you don’t want your price to be so high that people buy elsewhere, or so low that you miss out on revenue.

Through pricing research you’ll find out what your target customers are willing to pay for what you offer, allowing you to find the sweet spot—the price at which you can maximise revenue, profit and market share.

This is also the perfect time for you to find out if it’s worth your while to offer your customers any discounts, and if so, where in their journey these are most likely to be effective.

Market and competitor research

While it’s obviously super important to carry out research into your own product and offering, don’t forget to stay on top of what’s going on in your industry.

Conducting market and competitor research is vital if you want to offer your potential customers an industry-beating product.

And remember to iterate on your market and competitor research—repeat and build on your research to make sure you have a full understanding of industry trends and so you can identify new ones.

Satisfaction and loyalty research

And your product development research doesn’t end once your product’s out there in the market.

Are your customers truly satisfied with your offering? Are you giving them reasons to be loyal to your brand?

It’s a mistake to assume that your customers are satisfied just because they chose to buy from your company.

It’s vital that you continue assessing your customers’ happiness and desires, and to make sure you’re on top of any unmet needs.

Conclusion

We hope this practical guide to product development research has been useful for you, and that you can take this insight and continue developing concepts and products that wow your customers.

Always-on, iterative market research is a key way for you to discover ways you can enhance your product offering and make sure you leave customers satisfied with and loyal to your brand.