Posted by Whitney Quesenbery on March 10, 2010 | Comments (3)
I met Julie Kertesz (or joyoflife, as she is known on Flickr) for a photowalk around the London Borough Market. I wanted to know how she manages to create such open and personal photographs of real people from the streets of London.
Her London Diversity collections have thousands of images. What's striking about them is not the sheer size and scope of the collections, but the way her photos seems to tell a story about the people in the images. A man takes a child for a talk. A woman sits and reads. A worker drives a truck. Two friends sit at a café table.
What was her secret? It's quite simple: she talks to them. "It's all in the body language," she told me. If you are open to them, show them that you are interested in them, they will be open to you. We were sitting over our first pot of tea in a small café. "I'll show you." And she called the waitress over. "May I take your picture?" The woman giggled. "Your face is so interesting. I would like to make a photo of you." She smiled. The woman hesitated. Julie asked a few friendly questions, and as they talked the woman relaxed. Julie took a photo. She showed it to the woman. "See, you are lovely."
As we walked around the market, we talked to people and took their pictures. It was hard to find a balance: to keep the conversation going and also take a good photograph. Most of the time, I was better at the interview than the picture. It felt like the first time I ran a usability test--a bit awkward. But it got better with practice. The better the connection I could make, the better the photograph was. It was something we created together.
My favorite photograph came near the end of the day. I had tickets to see to Waiting for Godot. A concessions stand in the lobby sold photographs and programs. The woman managing the stand was dressed in a black jacket with a black brimmed hat. She told me that she found the hat at a thrift store soon after she learned that Godot was coming to her theater and saved it until the play opened. She looked perfect for the play.
It's not a perfect photograph. But it will remind me of this person, and her story, and my day on a photo walk in London.
Julie's photos from the market and mine.
Posted by Whitney Quesenbery on January 28, 2010 | Comments (0)
We put out a call for stories of "aha" moments during user research, when something observed in the context illuminates an entire aspect of experience. Nancy Frishberg sent us this story. It's a wonderful example of how people may not call attention to adjustments they have made in their environment.
Here's Nancy's story:
I did a series of home visits with people who had been diagnosed with a particular chronic illness. This illness causes joint inflammation, painful movement and fatigue among other symptoms, and can be controlled with various medications (and perhaps by diet).
I was investigating questions about how the illness affected the person's work life, family life, participation in social activities, whether any regular activities had been curtailed, and what changes the doctor recommended to the drug regimen or diet or other adjustments.
I worked with one woman who had been living with the illness for at least 7 years. Throughout our time together, she told me that the illness had little or no effect on her activities, and that she was healthy for all external purposes. Instead, we talked about our mutual enjoyment of the movies and she described a recent reunion with high school girlfriends, now all approaching retirement.
She owned a hairdressing studio, and felt responsibility to her (aging) customers to continue to provide them with service, though her husband had already retired. Her customers didn't know the extent of her illness, but just that she had aches and pains from time to time.
On my last visit with her, she asked if she could blow out my hair. I thought about it, and couldn't figure out why not. I hadn't taken the time to do anything other than let my chin-length straight hair air-dry. So we spent the final 20 minutes of our visit with her styling my hair.
Where's the aha?
She stood, while I sat. She used an ionic brush, an electronic dryer that looked something like this - different from the ones I'm used to. http://www.conair.com/images/hc_bc171cs.jpg
She worked with both hands: The dominant hand holds the dryer-brush for blowing warm air, shaping of the section of hair at the same time, while the non-dominant hand uses the tail of a comb to separate out sections of the hair for attention.
What's most noteworthy is that the device is about half the weight of an ordinary hair dryer (1.1lbs vs 2-3 lbs), which means that she had figured out a way to continue her work while reducing the physical demands of holding a heavy device.
She did not make any verbal reference to the difference in effort, but merely recommended that I might like to try this device at home, and that it was her favorite at the salon as well.
