Category Archives: community

community, conferences, design research, presentations, user experience

Now Scheduled: SXSW Panel “Tools to Know Your Users”

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SXSW is just around the corner! Our panel, “Developing Super Senses: Tools to Know Your Users” has been scheduled for Monday, March 16 at 5pm. Come hear me, Mark Trammell, Nate Bolt, Carla Borsoi, and Andy Budd duke it out over user research best practices.

Here’s the panel description:

You know you need to do user research, but how? Should you write surveys, do focus groups, or develop personas? And how do you act on what you’ve learned? We’ve been in the trenches and have concrete suggestions on what you can, and should do NOW to conduct effective user research.

We expect your attendance. And come equipped with a good question or two. :)

See me speak at SXSW 2009 (http://sxsw.com)

community, design research, presentations, user experience

Reflections on Web Directions North

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Last week I traveled to Denver to participate in the annual Web Directions North conference. I’m a fan of web conferences, and this one was particularly enjoyable. From watching the sun set behind the Rockies while snacking on still-warm doughnuts to debating the future of SVG with new friends, this was a good week.

On Monday, Mark Trammell and I led a workshop on user research. We focused on helping the workshop participants understand what key challenges their organizations face and how different research methods could help address these challenges. The participants were engaged and thoughtful and really inspiring as I think about my own organization and the user research that I do as part of my daily life.

I also gave a talk about how three companies made significant changes to products and processes based on user research and customer feedback, and how they knew which findings and feedback to act on. I’m still collecting stories of how companies make smart choices about acting on user research findings, so contact me if you have a good story to share.

Many, many thanks to John Allsopp for putting on an awesome conference in a tricky economic environment, and to the friends and colleagues who contributed so much to making this such a great event.

community

Things I’ve learned to do which I do no longer

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The illustrious Bronwyn Jones pulled me into her scheming, meming ways today, and I’m powerless to escape.

The rules of the game are as follows:

  • Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
  • Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
  • Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
  • Let them know they‚Äôve been tagged.

Here I present seven skills that I have acquired and cast aside along the way in these past (almost) three decades. I will echo Bronwyn and Ethan’s themes of marching band and literature studies. (I knew there was a reason I liked you people.)

  • I’m a former literature student, primarily of the French sort. I turned my back on Proust when I heard the siren song of HTML back in 2000.
    Discarded skill: the French language
  • In high school I was in marching band for a year. I quit due to a loathing of early mornings, team spirit, funny hats, etc. I taught myself how to play viola so that I could join the high school orchestra and continue to avoid gym class.
    Discarded skill: taking 18.5 inch steps
  • I can fly a plane once it’s in the air but can neither take off nor land.
    Discarded skill: IFR basics
  • My worst summer of teenage employment involved hosing off sidewalks at a seminary in Atlanta by day and directing the efforts of a band of delinquent yogurt servers at Fr?´sh?´ns by night.
    Discarded skills: hose repair, reliably extruding exactly 4 ounces of yogurt product at a time
  • After many late nights in the Bryn Mawr Fossil Lab I could visually discern at least 15 brachiopod species.
    Discarded skill: paleobiology
  • I read the reproductive health service guidelines for every country in Sub-Saharan Africa to analyze adherence to WHO standards. Many thousands of pages later, we didn’t end up publising the paper.
    Discarded skill: public health policy research
  • I once organized a conference in the same county where Deliverance was filmed. It was tough to find a good caterer.
    Discarded skill: temping

And per the rules, I’m yelling “Tag, you’re it!” to these fine folks.

Carla Borsoi
April Buchert
Kevin Cheng
Coley Wopperer
Ann Larie Valentine
Tantek ?áelik
Corey Denis