User research is gloriously messy!
Buy Interviewing Users from Rosenfeld Media.
I’m grateful to Tina Licková for hosting our great discussion on the UX Research Geeks podcast.
You can listen to our 40-minute conversation on the episode page, where you’ll also find a transcript.
It’s also on Spotify and Apple (and embedded below locally and from Spotify).
Excerpt:
It’s a messy human activity. It’s something that you can plan for, it’s something that you can prepare for, but will always, especially if done well, will always be surprising and unexpected and force you, I think in a good way, to be improvisational, to be responsive…I think that might be a negative to some people, that might be scary, but for me, it’s very joyful and creative and challenging. It’s always challenging. And I think that’s where we get all the great value out of research. It’s not, “What do you want? Thank you. I’ve got it.” It is meeting somebody where they are and trying to figure out how are you going to be with them?