Candor interviews synthetic participants: AI-generated people built from real evidence, not invented from a prompt. Each use case below starts from a decision a team has to make, and shows what you’d run and what comes back.
Tell Candor what you want to learn and it recommends a study type, or a short sequence of them in the order to run.
| If you’re asking | Run |
|---|---|
| We know who we want to serve. Which of their problems matter? | Problem discovery |
| We have a list of problems. Which ones are real enough to build for? | Problem validation |
| We have several ideas. Which one should we back? | Concept testing |
| The concept is settled. What should we call it? | Name testing |
| Which benefit should we lead with? | Value proposition testing |
| Which headline makes people want to learn more? | Messaging testing |
| What should we charge? | Price testing |
The riskiest guess in most roadmaps is the problem itself. These two studies check it before anyone designs a solution.
Once the problem is real, the question becomes which answer to it deserves the engineering, design or campaign budget.
These three tests take one concept you already have. Participants meet it first, then react to each option in that context, so nobody judges a name or a headline in a vacuum.
A price is hard to walk back once customers have seen it. Test it after the concept, when people understand what they'd be paying for.
Yes. Take a team exploring a new service for small landlords. You build the audience and its participants once, then run each research plan on the same people.
Problem discovery shows what landlords struggle with: late rent, repair callouts, tenant turnover.
Problem validation tests the top three and finds that only one is painful enough to pay to fix.
A concept test puts four ideas against that one problem and picks the idea worth building.
A price test sets the starting range for the idea that won.
Participants remember their earlier interviews in the same study, so each round builds on what they already told you.
The decisions on this page aren’t owned by one role. Consultants run discovery and validation when a client expects evidence and the budget won’t cover exploratory interviews. Product managers run concept and price tests ahead of a roadmap review. UX researchers and insights teams screen concepts before panel budget is spent. Brand and marketing teams test names, value propositions and messages before a launch.
Every study works for business buyers or consumers, and Candor models the two separately: a procurement lead doesn’t decide the way a shopper does.
We’ve written detailed guides for three teams whose workflow we know well. They’re examples, not the full list. If your team isn’t here, start from the decision you face above.
PRODUCT DISCOVERY TEAMS
PMs, designers, and product ops can interview evidence-grounded synthetic respondents about problems, concepts, value props, and pricing without queuing for the UXR team.
CONSUMER INSIGHTS TEAMS
A project throws up 10 to 50 concepts and panel budget covers a handful. Screen the whole pool synthetically, then spend panel budget on the survivors that warrant statistical validation.
HEALTHCARE & REGULATED CX TEAMS
Patient and member research without panel recruitment friction. Evidence-grounded synthetic participants for concept tests, journey mapping, and member-experience exploration. Anonymize before uploading.
It depends on what you already know. If you don't know which problems matter to your audience, start with problem discovery. If you have specific problems in mind, start with problem validation. If you have an idea to react to, start with concept testing. If the idea is settled and you need a number, run price testing. And if the concept is settled but its name, benefit or message isn't, run a name, value proposition or messaging test. Candor also recommends an approach from what you tell it you want to learn.
Yes. Build the audience and its participants once, then run several research plans against them: a discovery study, then validation on what it surfaced, then a concept test. Participants remember earlier interviews in the same study, so each round builds on what they already told you. When your question needs more than one type, Candor lays out the plans in the order to run them.
Yes. Candor treats business buyers and consumers as separate modeling domains. A procurement lead evaluating enterprise software decides differently from someone making an impulse purchase. When you describe your audience you choose which it is, and the whole pipeline adapts: different attribute models, personality weightings, bias profiles and interview sections for each.
No. The guides cover three teams whose workflow we've written up in detail, but the use cases on this page aren't tied to a job title. Consultants, product managers, UX researchers, insights and brand teams, innovation teams and marketers all run them. If you have a decision to make about a problem, a concept, its words or its price, one of these studies fits.
Both. Pre-launch teams use Candor to find the problem, test concepts and set a first price before they commit. Teams with live products use it to test a new feature, rework the value proposition, rename something, or pressure-test a pricing change. The study types are the same; only the timing changes.
No. Candor isn't a replacement for talking to real customers. It's the step before, or the step when traditional research is too slow, too expensive or not available. Use it to find the problems worth exploring, narrow concepts before a panel, and work out which questions deserve real research budget. The best teams use synthetic research to make their real research sharper.
Start with a free project, or walk through Candor with us first.