About

Steve Portigal is a consultant who helps organizations to build more mature user research practices. Over the past 25 years, he has interviewed hundreds of people, including families eating breakfast, film production accountants, hotel maintenance staff, architects, radiologists, home-automation enthusiasts, credit-default swap traders, and rock musicians. He has informed the development of commercial lighting controls, medical information systems, professional music gear, design systems, wine packaging, work-from-home practices, financial services, corporate intranets, videoconferencing systems, and music streaming services.

Steve is the author of two books: the classic Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights (now in a second edition) and Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories. He's also the host of the Dollars to Donuts podcast. Steve is an in-demand presenter who gives talks and leads workshops regularly at corporate events and conferences such as Enterprise UX, Euro IA, Interaction, SXSW, UX Australia, UX Hong Kong, and UX Lisbon. His articles about culture, design, innovation, and interviewing users have been published in interactions, Core77, Ambidextrous, and Johnny Holland. Steve grew up near Toronto and now lives and works along the foggy, relaxed coastline of the San Francisco Bay Area. He’s an enthusiastic traveler and an avid photographer with a Museum of Foreign Groceries in his home.