Be Your Customer, sometimes called the 'mystery shopper' method in service design, asks researchers and designers to experience their own product or service as a paying customer, from initial discovery through to purchase, use, and aftercare. By walking the full customer journey in the customer's shoes, teams routinely discover gaps, friction points, and inconsistencies that internal familiarity had rendered invisible. It is one of the most direct and humbling forms of design research available.
Be Your Customer
Experiencing your own product exactly as a new customer does
Designers Academy
8 April 2025 · 4 min read
In brief
The 'Be Your Customer' method is a design research technique where teams act as new customers to uncover product friction points and inconsistencies.


