KanoSurveys passes 250,000 answers submitted and publishes new research into what makes Kano surveys work

KanoSurveys.com has passed a major product engagement milestone, with more than 250,000 answers now submitted through the platform since it launched in 2019.

The milestone reflects steady adoption of the Kano Model as a practical framework for product validation, feature prioritisation and roadmap planning. KanoSurveys is bootstrapped, profitable, and has been used by people from organisations including PwC, Adobe, Intuit, Accenture, BP and Deloitte.

To mark the milestone, KanoSurveys has also published a new research report: The Kano Survey Design Report: what 1,172 real surveys reveal. The report analyses real survey usage on the platform to understand how teams structure Kano surveys, what makes the data more reliable, and how product teams can avoid common mistakes when interpreting customer feedback.

The findings show that Kano remains highly relevant for product teams, especially as AI rapidly changes what users expect from software. While teams are moving faster than ever, the underlying product question has not changed: which ideas will genuinely increase customer satisfaction, and which ones will waste time?

"Kano has always been about understanding the shape of customer value," said William Barden, founder of KanoSurveys. "That's even more important now. AI makes it easier to build, but it also makes it easier to build the wrong thing quickly. Product teams still need structured, evidence-based ways to understand what users expect, what excites them, and what they simply don't care about."

The report found that successful Kano surveys tend to be focused rather than sprawling. Across 1,172 qualifying surveys, the median survey tested 8 features, while 63.4% of surveys tested between 6 and 10 features. This matters because each Kano feature requires a functional and dysfunctional question, meaning a 10-feature survey already asks respondents to answer 20 core questions.

The research also highlights the importance of response volume on Kano analysis. As surveys gathered more responses, the share of Indifferent results increased sharply: from 20.3% among surveys with 10-20 responses to 56.2% among surveys with more than 200 responses. KanoSurveys interprets this as a warning against over-trusting small, enthusiastic early samples. Larger audiences often reveal that many apparently exciting ideas are less important to the broader market.

One of the clearest commercial findings is that Kano surveys are useful not just for identifying promising features, but for cutting waste. Across the dataset, 24.5% of tested features were classified as Indifferent or Reverse, meaning roughly one in four roadmap ideas tested were things users either did not care about or actively disliked.

The report also shows how strongly AI is influencing product roadmaps. AI features had the highest Delighter rate of any feature type at 66.0%, and the number of AI features tested grew from 39 in 2022 to 230 in 2025. However, KanoSurveys warns that today's AI Delighters may become tomorrow's basic expectations as the market matures.

For KanoSurveys, the 250,000-answer milestone is both a credibility marker and a reminder of the value of structured product research.

"Product teams are under pressure to move fast, especially with AI changing the cost and speed of software delivery," Barden said. "But speed only helps if you're moving in the right direction. Kano gives teams a simple but powerful way to separate must-haves, performance features, delighters, low-impact ideas and risky concepts before committing serious design and engineering effort."

KanoSurveys is available at kanosurveys.com and provides tools for creating Kano surveys, collecting responses, segmenting audiences, analysing feature categories, and prioritising product ideas based on customer satisfaction impact.