Interviewing Users is now available. Get your copy here!
It’s been (just over) fours months since Interviewing Users came out! Below is a roundup of links to various bits connected with the book. I’ll republish this regularly with accumulated updates.
It’s September in Northern California and that means the weather is insanely gorgeous! Summer is finally here.
I’m doing the last bit of preparation for my new workshop The Designer Is Present, to be held at Fluxible this weekend. Participants have a short homework exercise, there’s A/V and other logistic details to be worked out, and I need to finalize a 5-minute talk I’ll be giving to the entire conference. I leave very early Friday morning. Meanwhile, Max and Brody are featured in a promotional video for Fluxible, which you can see here.
I’ll be speaking to the Rome UX Book Club (via G+ Hangout) on September 18.
My presentation at the LA UX Meetup on September 19 is full and they are now taking names for the waiting list.
Out on the town this week, I’ll be seeing Marina Abramovic at City Arts and Lectures and hoping to drop in on the book launch party for Erika Hall’s Just Enough Research.
I worked with Max and Brody to put together this video (see below) for promoting the upcoming Fluxible conference. I’ll be leading the first-ever instance of a new workshop I’ve put together called The Designer Is Present, in which we’ll look at the essential need for self-knowledge in user experience and play with some exercises to unlock it in ourselves.
I’m spending much of this week in Vancouver, visiting family.
I’m wrapping up the details for The Designer Is Present, to be held at the end of next week. This is a new workshop and I’m crazy excited for it.
I just arranged to lead a day of training at a client’s site in Tampa next month; I haven’t ever been to Tampa so looking forward to having a bit of an explore beforehand.
I’ll be speaking to the Rome UX Book Club (via G+ Hangout) on September 18.
I’ll be speaking about Interviewing Users at the LA UX Meetup on September 19.
Adam: What do you think people are going to do differently after reading this book?
Steve: I think the book sets people up-it sounds maybe a little trite, but let me try to unpack it a little bit-it sets people up to really hear the people they talk to, their users, their customers, their target, to really hear where they’re at and to understand what’s important to them, as opposed to sort of hearing what we want to hear.
And so this is where I said earlier there’s some philosophy, and there’s some tactics. And the tactics come from the philosophy. I think this is what I’ve seen lacking in practitioners that I meet with over the years, is that it’s sort of easy to ask questions or even ask questions well and hear what people are telling you.
But the broader approach, which is to understand people’s world as it’s organized and kind of structured and labeled from their point of view-it never matches either the frameworks that we have going in or the architectures of tools that we’re providing.
So to take that kind of deeply, completely user-centered approach and understand what the user’s building up their world out of, how they think about it and feel about it and talk about it, I mean, that’s what starts to be where you get towards excellence types of user research.
So that’s not what everyone’s always going to do. That’s not always what the objective is, but I think-I’m hoping that this will start to open up people to be able to do that, to have that kind of be baked into their approach to users. It’s not just collecting responses to questions but really grokking where they are coming from and how they’re operating.
UIE has posted our “Book Corner” podcast here. It’s a fairly concise conversation I had with Adam Churchill about – you guessed it – Interviewing Users. Check it out!
I’m recording another podcast this AM and will post the details once it goes live, presumably in a couple of weeks.
At the same time, I’m hoping to get some update on a few projects that we proposed, as well as nail down a few more details about some upcoming workshops and speaking events.
Just announced: I’ll be speaking at the Los Angeles UX Meetup on September 19. Topic is currently being voted on!
I’m in San Diego today to wrap up this project that I’ve been so focused on. We’ve got a session today that is part presentation and part workshop. The that came out of the analysis is really interesting and has huge implications for this team’s current opportunities – and those still to come. I know my main contacts are really excited about it.
Interviewing Users was reviewed in QRCA (Qualitative Research Consultants Association) Views Magazine. The entire issue is here or read the review as a PDF here.
Thanks to John Ruberto for his review of Interviewing Users on Amazon.
All This ChittahChattah is the Portigal blog, bringing you observations of daily life, disdainful snark over bad design, updates on my activities, and info about user research since 2001.
