Diving Deep for Insight
Blog Archive
- May 10, 2012: Share Your Fieldwork War Story
- I've started a new series of fieldwork war stories, and I'd love to get your examples as well...(if you are reading this in Google Reader, etc. you may simply see a link to an online form, but if you...
- May 8, 2012: Nick Bowmast's design researcher toolkit
- Nick Bowmast has thought in-depth about what to take with him when he goes into the field With design research (contextual inquiry or ethnography, if you like), there's an amount of planning and kit required too - I've been running...
- April 7, 2012: Documentaries as interviewing exemplars
- In the book I describe a scene from Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man; but great (and not-so-great) examples of interviewing best practices can easily be found in documentaries. A nice little blurb from the New York Times review, 'Player Hating,' Maggie...
- March 30, 2012: Meet Google's search anthropologist
- Some nice bits about the process (including a lovely mention of "listening") in this article today But about four years after forming, Google came to realize it needed human insights to infuse that information with context and meaning. The company...
- February 24, 2012: Sketchnotes resources
- In the chapter on documenting interviews, I devote a little bit of ink to visual form (which include a variety of techniques, such as visual recording, visual note-taking/sketchnotes, and mind-mapping). While I can only focus on a limited aspect of...
- January 10, 2012: Tips to Improve Your Interviewing Skills (and a request for more!)
- I'm working on some of the final chapters and am interested in the ways that people have developed their own skills as an interviewer. I'll list a few but this list can only get better with your input.Practice, man, practice....
- January 10, 2012: Multi-platform rapport
- I encountered an amusingly challenging interview situation earlier this week. My team and I were at a client's site to kick off a project, including some interviews with stakeholders. For a variety of reasons (access and scheduling being the most...
- October 31, 2011: Crafting the Participant Agreement
- I'm so pleased that Harry Boadwee, a Silicon Valley lawyer, has contributed the following, which will be included in the book as a sidebar. It's great to get a legal perspective on the need, intent, and process for the document...
- September 29, 2011: Slides from today's workshop - Interviewing Users: Spinning Data Into Gold
- Here are the slides from today's workshop in Seattle....
- September 13, 2011: What you need to survive going into the field...it's not just your research plan.
- Shelley-Ann J. West posts her mindmap of things to bring into the field. You can see the full map here....
- August 30, 2011: His Girl Friday and rapid exchange
- I've been working out some thoughts on turn-taking in the interview. Sometimes I'm challenged to figure out my respondent's rhythm so that I can adjust my own asking-pausing rhythm appropriately. I can't help but think of a wonderful example...
- August 25, 2011: Listen to Steve speak with Jared Spool about "Immersive Field Research"
- I was recently interviewed by Jared Spool in anticipation of November's User Interface 16 conference (where I'll be leading a full-day workshop). You can listen to the interview here (MP3), and read the transcript here. There's a great sort of,...
- August 19, 2011: Steve leading Immersive Field Research Techniques workshop at UI16
- In addition to my upcoming Rosenfeld Media workshop, I'll also be presenting a full-day workshop on Immersive Field Research Techniques at User Interface 16 this November in Boston. Registration gives you Two full-day workshops: The UI16 experts will dive deep...
- August 18, 2011: Flow in the interview
- Earlier this week the San Francisco IxDa hosted a talk by Peter Stahl about The Rhythm of Interaction. As part of his presentation, Peter talked about Mihály Csíkszentmihályi's notion of Flow - "the mental state of operation in which a...
- August 16, 2011: Listen to Steve on the User Experience podcast
- I was interviewed by Gerry Gaffney for his User Experience podcast. The topic of the interview was, recursively, interviewing. You can listen to the interview here (MP3), and read the transcript here. Steve: Yeah there's something about interviewing. It...
- August 11, 2011: Win Your Subjects Over with Genuine Enthusiasm
- Parallels to interviewing users crop up all over the place. Just like us, portrait photographers ask their subjects trust them, as they go on a journey that might be uncomfortable at times. I don't want to overwork the comparison, of...
- August 10, 2011: Steve to lead "Interviewing Users" workshop 9/28 in Seattle
- As part of the Rosenfeld Media UX Workshops Fall 2011 Tour, I'll be leading a full-day workshop - Interviewing Users: Spinning Data into Gold. You can choose up to 3 workshops, including ones from Lou Rosenfeld and Steve Krug. Early...
- May 20, 2011: Spot the successful - and less successful - interviewing techniques
- Sesame Street's Bert sits down with comedian and Saturday Night Live cast member, Andy Samberg, to talk about life, literature, cuisine and of course, socks. As a fellow introvert, I recognize Bert's slight shift into a more deliberate and mannered...
- March 22, 2011: Diving Deep: Best Practices For Interviewing Users at SXSW Interactive 2011
- I spoke at SXSW recently about the interviewing process in user research. Obviously I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately, so this was great timing. While we know, from a very young age, how to ask questions, the...
- January 14, 2011: Kick out the jams!
- [Crunch - Crunch] Uhhh, is this thing on? Oh, okay. Wow! Yes, thanks everyone for coming. This is the inaugural blog post as we head on this journey together. You didn't sign up for any sort of journey, maybe, but...
