Assessing whether a feature is needed via a survey or unmoderated test

Question

A product manager dreamt up and designed a feature. They want me to quickly find out whether users actually need it by running a quick unmoderated test.

The feature is a contextual search in a music streaming app that prioritizes suggestions and then results based on the page a user goes into the search from. Results connected to that page appear on top as their own category.

What questions can I ask to assess whether users actually need this feature? Is there any point in showing users the prototypes?

I am planning on doing a first click test to see what users do when tasked with searching for something, then asking questions about how important it is for them that they find it fast and whether they are satisfied with how it works right now.

Right now I am in no position to pick a different method on school the team on what discovery research is.

Answer 1

Well, if no user has asked for it or commented about a lack of functionality that this feature solves, they probably don't NEED it. Whether or not it would be of value is a slightly different question.

I would consider doing a standard cognitive interview with some users and asking non-leading questions about their search behavior and the how they feel about the results that they get currently in the app; see if anything starts pointing the way towards an actual need for this new functionality. Then as a second part of the test you could show them some mockups of the new UI that includes the new functionality and do some super simple prototype testing or just show m0ckups: ask them what they see that is different from the current experience, how they would react to this new type of search results, ask how useful they would find the new results, etc. Let them "discover" the new way things work and comment on it rather than asking them specifically about it right out of the gate.

One man's view :-) Good luck!