Briefly, the purpose of a cultural probe is to conduct user research from a distance. So rather than having to literally follow the user around for two weeks, they contribute to the probe, either explicitly by writing ‘diary’ entries, or implicitly by leaving ‘digital footprints’ of their online activity. One might label the former as a reflective diary probe and the latter as a ‘lifestream’ log probe. Both types are useful, the lifestream log as evidence akin to analytics of what they actually do, and the reflective diaries in terms of exploring the motivations behind what they think and do.

In years gone by, diary studies have ridden both peaks and troughs in popularity with social and market research practitioners, but these days there are now many ways to conduct a probe online, for little or no cost (aside from recruiting users and compensating them for their time). For example, you can easily setup a blog to act as an online diary—I’ve done this using WordPress on a number of occasions—but if you’re less technically inclined or want the convenience of using an “off the shelf” tool, then there are things like Tumblr and Posterous.

Having just completed a piece of research where I used Posterous in this manner, I thought it would make for a nice instructional article. Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Using cultural probes for intranet user research
2. Cultural probes and magic things
3. A summary of user research methods

I’ve been very bad and not uploaded any photos of my girls for a long, long time. Busy I guess. But the two of them are growing steadily, too fast it seems, and are becoming good friends.

Evangeline is a little crawling machine, and today she started ‘talking’. It’s only baby talk but it’s very cute for an 8 month old. She’s very happy, always smiling, but she’s tough and doesn’t take any nonsense from her big sister. In fact, I think Evie will be the one dishing it out!

Grace is still talking up a storm; we’re just not sure which language she’s using sometimes! She’s almost 2 and a half, and bounding through each day like the curious and whacky chick that she is. I’ve started driving her to day-care three days a week on my way to work, and I’m looking forward to spending that time on the road with her.

No related posts.

The workshop is a new version of one I’ve run a few times before, updated with new examples and activities. The presentation will give a short intro to a few research methods that are not so common in the IA field.

Hope to see you there!

No related posts.

Lately I’ve been having fun (that’s a lie, it wasn’t fun at all) trying to get VOIP to work as our home phone. If you just read that sentence and are asking yourself “what’s a VOIP?”, then the rest of this post probably won’t be very useful to you. But so that you don’t leave here totally and utterly bewildered, VOIP stands for “voice over IP” and is a method of replacing a normal telephone line with calls made over the internet.

The background

When my family and I moved house recently, we decided to ditch the landline we hardly ever used and go with iiNet’s “Naked DSL”. As a broadband service it’s been pretty good, although it took ages to get connected. They throw in VOIP as part of the package, but I thought nothing of it at the time. But as often happens my wife changed her mind I realised that it was stupid of me to not have a landline installed.

Neither my ADSL modem nor router give me VOIP capability (which is not to say they don’t “support” it) so I worked out I needed an ATA (Analogue Telephone Adapter) which would turn any old telephone into teh interwebz fone. So I did a bit of hunting around and quickly found a Linksys PAP2-NA ATA on eBay, in fact there are heaps of them on eBay for a pittance. Heaps cheaper than the Belkin ATA that iiNet try to sell you.

The problem

I bought a PAP2-NA from eBay, well, Hong Kong to be precise. Installed it, which is easy if you use these instructions specific to setting up a PAP2 on iiNet. Tried it. Didn’t work. All outbound calls cut off after 30 seconds (including the ringing time).

Then I did what I should have done first, which was to do a bit more research on the Linksys device. The PAP2 in its various forms is extremely popular by all accounts, but also very dodgy in many cases. You’ll find many horror stories on the web about PAP2s from Hong Kong that don’t work, or devices that are “locked” to a specific service provider (eg Vonage) or people “bricking” their devices whilst trying to get them to work. Actually, you’ve probably read some of these stories if you’ve found your way to this post via Google.

It wasn’t looking good. What followed was a lot of mucking around and a lot of Google searches, trying to work out what might be wrong with my PAP2.

Port forwarding

One of the first things that often gets mentioned on the various discussion threads relating to PAP2 problems is the router’s firewall and NAT capability. My router is an Apple Time Capsule, which is used to share my Naked DSL connection with all the devices in our house. It’s essentially an Airport Extreme Base Station. There is no firewall, so that was not applicable, but I thought I’d better make sure the necessary ports were making it through the NAT (network address translation).

I setup the following rules in the Time Capsule, which forward traffic on the specified ports to the PAP2 (which has a fixed IP assignment in the router’s DHCP):

1. “VOIP SIP”: TCP and UDP ports 5060-5061
2. “VOIP RTP”: TCP and UDP ports 16384-16482

(To be honest, since I got VOIP working properly I haven’t gone back and removed these port forwarding rules to see if they are really necessary, so it could very well be that you don’t need to do this bit)

PAP2 logging

After a while I came across this post about logging what the PAP2 was doing so that I could diagnose the problem, and then hopefully solve it. The PAP2 doesn’t keep logs but it can spit out logs to a syslog server, which is what most network and telephony devices do.

I wasted a bit of time trying to get my iMac to accept syslog messages from an external device. Never had any luck, something was stopping it from getting the messages; potentially it had something to do with the fact that in later builds of Snow Leopard the syslogd config is different to earlier builds as well as Leopard and older versions of Mac OS X, and so there was no information out there on how to do what I needed.

So I gave up and used a Windows laptop I had lying around, installing Kiwi syslog server. In a matter of minutes I had a stream of log messages from my PAP2 so I could monitor what it was doing. (If you do this you might want to change the PAP2′s debug level so that it spits out as much detail as possible)

Firmware update

Along the way I also discovered a lot of talk about PAP2 firmware. There seem to be many different versions of the PAP2, so you need to be very careful about getting the right firmware. My PAP2 was originally distributed by Vonage and is a “PAP2-NA” hardware version 0.03.4 and had firmware version 3.1.12(LS) when I bought it. The latest version of firmware for this model is 3.1.23(LS) which you can get from here. To install it follow the instructions at the end of this post (note the firmware he refers to is for the PAP2T-NA which is a different model and that firmware will not install on a PAP2-NA).

But alas, this was merely a clever distraction from the fact that VOIP wasn’t working and I didn’t know why. The logs from the PAP2 gave no indication that there were any errors etc.

The ADSL modem

Then I started thinking about how many people kept talking about “routers” causing their problems. In my case my router (the Time Capsule) is separate from my ADSL modem. My modem is a Siemens SpeedStream 4200 left over from a previous Optus broadband package. It does ADSL2+, is easy to setup and has worked flawlessly for years. Despite these facts I was now looking at it with scorn and suspicion.

Research quickly revealed the most excellent website TheVoipStore and their information on the SpeedStream 4200. Earlier I made the distinction between a router/modem having VOIP “capability” and “support”, and it appears the 4200 does neither. Something about asymmetrical NAT, but anyway I had found the source of my “outbound VOIP calls drop-out after 30 seconds” problem. There is an easy solution, however! Put the modem into bridge mode.

At about this time I remembered that I had been using the modem’s built-in “router” to dish out DHCP to my Time Capsule which was in turn acting as a router and dishing out DHCP to everything else. No particular reason, was just the easiest way of setting it up. But I used to run another modem bridged to the Time Capsule, so I simply returned to that arrangement (following TheVoipStore’s instructions for putting the 4200 into bridge mode).

Voilà, VOIP started working instantly. Outbound (and inbound, but they were never affected) calls can be made for any length of time.

So in the end, there was nothing at all wrong with my Linksys PAP2-NA, it was the modem/router configuration all along!

I hope this tale is of some use to anyone who has part or all of the arrangement of devices described above. Best of luck.

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I’m slowly and not-so-surely making my way through Good Thinking that I talked about in a recent post. It’s full of really great tips for researhers, not just with regards to methods and methodology but also in terms of mindset.

In a chapter discussing the psychology of small groups, the author talks about the effects of deception and economy with the truth, on the part of the researcher. In her opinion, and I agree, a good researcher must adopt a more respectful attitude with regard to the people they are researching:

It means a shift in perception from treating respondents as laboratory experiment ‘fodder’ or human guinea pigs to consenting adults who have points of view to contribute. It means letting go of the idea that the information the client is looking for can be extracted from respondents whether or not they give permission. It means challenging the view that both client and researcher have the right to be manipulative and controlling because they have paid respondents to attend the session, or have paid the researcher (or company) a large amount of money to retrieve information to solve a marketing problem.

This passage is followed by a ‘quote’ from David Ogilvy:

The consumer may or may not be your wife, husband, child or parent, but you can be sure that he or she is a real living, breathing, thinking and doing human being, who has as much of a right to their way of life as you have to yours.

I like this, and in fact I have used the sentiment embodied in the above quotes as the basis for a ‘principles of user research’ blurb in my research proposals.

It’s all to easy for us to forget that our work revolves around people, not answers. The very difficulty in getting the answers we want to inform our business decisions, should be telling us something: that people are complex and messy. And thus the approach we often need to take in research is equally complex and messy and (immediate) success is not always garaunteed.

I think it particularly important to set the scene and establish a certain mindset—and expectation—with the client. And it touches on many different areas of research, how participants are treated, how results are interpreted. It might sound a bit soft and ‘user biased’ but isn’t that what user research is all about, findings out what users think/do/feel/want/need/say? Of course it needs to be balanced with the realities of business (and in particular the limitations of technology) and I am always going on about balancing the raw user-centric view, but when it comes to user input, it should be conducted on their terms, with respect and consideration for them.

Even when they do things that are stupid, silly, strange or simply incomprehensible to us :)

[Image credit: "Geminoid F" by Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP]

Related posts:

1. The fundamentals of human psychology applied to market research
2. Stop calling it usability testing
3. Choosing design research methods

Seeing as I firmly believe that for every unpublished blog post there is one less bit of momentum keeping the interwebs spinning, I’d better put this up. And it’s interesting to look back at what I wrote two and a half years ago…

Day 1 started with a very inspiring talk by Bill Buxton. I think this was just the thing the industry needs, a bit of a reality check and a wake-up call. Firstly usability evaluation is not design and for that reason most people here don’t actually practice User-Centred Design. It’s all about data, rules, strict methodologies, large companies. They’ve even turned agile into something overly defined and bogged down (I have no strong belief either way when it comes to agile methodologies by the way). Bill’s talk about sketching as an important tool for the design process flies in the face of the artefact centric practice many Usability Professionals follow. No there’s no template for it, no there’s no software tool to do it, you have to use your brain! I mean the theme of the conference (“patterns”) says it all really.

This sounds really negative, but I don’t want to be. There are some smart and talented people here, but overall the industry is weighed down by strictness and illusions. Strictness in the sense that many people want some methodology to tell them what to do. I can understand that, but as Bill said, if you find yourself thinking that all the time (being scared of wining it) then maybe this isn’t the job for you. Illusions in terms of the discrepancy between literature and practice. A lot of the things published are not followed in practice (eg rapid, flexible approaches by clever people are replaced by limited, templated projects) and good practice is not published (eg using multiple design alternatives in usability testing). Then there’s the illusions of grandeur, like the way many practitioners think of what they do as some kind of scientific crusade and admitting there is some I-don’t-know-ness to it is an act of heresy.

For me, the best thing I saw at the conference was this talk. It’s a pity someone from outside the field (perhaps technically but really as far as I am concerned he’s slap bang in the centre of what we should strive for) had to be the one to say it. You can’t truly be doing UCD if you’re just evaluating, testing and documenting. This shouldn’t be about statistical analysis techniques.

I remember thinking that my approach to my work seemed at odds with how other attendees appeared to be working, and from the above it seems this annoyed me! Too many practitioners being more worried about following the ‘proper’ process, rather than actually thinking. And the post I did publish at the time, contains similar thoughts.

Related posts:

1. Web Directions South 2008 day one
2. Intranet (re)design wrap-up
3. Strategically managing intranet developments

[William] Schlackman taught me the fundamentals of human psychology applied to market research: people will not share feelings and thoughts with a researcher if these are in any way embarrassing to self-esteem; that people always try to ‘look good’ (rational, intelligent, helpful); that some attitudes and emotions are difficult to put into words; that ‘rationalisations’, ‘ambivalence’, ‘justifications’, ‘projections’ are part of everyday human life and that integrity in one’s relationship with respondents is paramount.

This certainly reflects my experience with qualitative market/user/social research and I think it’s an excellent micro summary of basic tips for researchers.

Should have included this quote in my So you want to be a user researcher? post :)

Related posts:

1. Living, breathing, thinking and doing human beings
2. A summary of user research methods
3. Design research workshop at OZ-IA

A person then walked through, rather sheepishly, but intentionally; in one door and out the other, weaving between the few customers and staff in their path. Both the othe guy waiting and myself noticed this. The other guy saw the owner/manager of the coffee shop looking on and asked “does that happen often?”.
“All the time” replied the manager in a thick Italian-Australian accent.
“People try to walk through, saying ‘is it ok?’. I say, ‘sure mate, at least you ask’. Most of them don’t [even ask]”
“Is that right?” said the other customer, rather surprised.
The other staff nodded in agreement as the the manager said “It’s just rude…rude”.
“I say to them ‘it’s not a street, it’s money!’” he exclaimed whilst pointing both hands at the passageway.

We chuckled in agreement. His use of English might have been comical, but the manager summed up his frustration perfectly clearly with that last line.

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Hi Patrick,

I’m Hans, a technical writer from Zurich and wanted to say a quick hello.

I happened to visit your website and liked the article The 7 Stages of User Frustration :)

I have a interest towards user research and have been reading books.

I’m looking out for projects (websites or applications) where I could help with user research and data analysis. I was wondering how to get started in terms of skills required. I know it is not easy for people to entrust such an important activity to me. Could you help me with your suggestions?

Thanks,
Hans

I thought about how I would respond, but since this isn’t the first time I’ve been asked this question, I figured it might be helpful to respond in the form of a blog post for everyone to see.

I’ll start by saying that this is my take on how I do my kind of user research and how I think someone could help get themselves where I am.

What is user research?

While I teach whole workshops on the subject of user research, in essence it really is very simple. User research is about understanding an audience; what they need, what they want, what they think, how they interact with other people, information and information systems such as websites. And perhaps most importantly, for all of the above, it’s about why.

It’s a mixture of market research, psychology, sociology, anthropology and business analysis. You see, people are like onions; lots of different layers. Which layers you look at will depend on the research context. What do you need to understand about your users in order to meet your objective?

At the end of the day, the purpose of user research is to understand the needs of the users and how those needs might be satisfied. It’s the second half of that last sentence that is quite pivotal; you can learn a lot about what makes the users tick, but for most practical applications we need to be able to then design something. Thus, the term “design research” is often used as a synonym for user research in fields such as interaction design and user experience (UX), which is the field I work in.

Skills

There are of course many user research methods for you to master (which is no small accomplishment by the way). However, there are other skills you need as a user researcher.

I think the most important “skill” is to have an interest in discovering, learning, probing deeper. I’m not a strict methodologist, I rarely follow a rigid process for my work, but the curiosity and desire to discover the what, how and why has been an indispensable feather in my cap. You have to want to dig beneath the surface and find out about the people you’re researching. They’re not a faceless, anonymous, uniform mass of “users”. They don’t think like you, they don’t think like your organisation (or client) wishes they would, they don’t act the way that would be convenient for the UI designer or system architect. (Unless of course they do, but you won’t know that unless you go and find out.)

Facilitation and public speaking skills and very helpful. You need to be confident and commanding when necessary, such as when moderating a focus group, but also quiet and a good listener, such as when interviewing or observing. Confidence can be acquired, but being quiet and observant, not so easily. That’s why I think introverts make good researchers, they can sit and watch and listen, taking it all in rather than needing to talk a lot. However this may be me post-rationalising!

I’m good at taking notice of things about people and remembering faces (and the people attached to them!). I think I can “read” people well. And I’m pretty good at seeing connections between various traits, and indeed between people, identifying patterns in their personalities and behaviour. This is not to say I’m the world’s best researcher, just that I find these have been useful traits.

Learning from other fields

As you can see from my definition of user research above, I see it as having very fuzzy boundaries, with lots of overlap with other fields. This means there’s much to be learnt from people in other disciplines. This includes anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, journalists, market researchers, technical writers, business analysts (BA) and industrial designers.

Research at its most basic, is about gaining insight. You choose something you want to better understand, then you go off and find out what you can about it. As you’d imagine this concept is pretty widespread, so you’ll find research expertise in lots of different places.

You can borrow techniques from these other fields, but probably more important when you’re starting out is being able to watch and learn from them. Shadow them, or perhaps some kind of mentoring relationship might work.

You then need to translate what you learn from these other fields and apply it to user research. This cross pollination has proven very useful for me.

Book learning

The overlap with other disciplines means there are lots of sources of information and insight. As Hans mentions, you can start by reading (actually not just start but all the way through your career).

Two good books to get you started with user research are:

• Don’t Make Me Think! by Steve Krug
• Observing the User Experience by Mike Kuniavsky

The first gives you the right attitude and approach to take, the second gives practical details on many research techniques.

Each of the disciplines mentioned in the previous section will no doubt have their own community, whether it be online or off. These communities are usually a great source of recommendations on books to read, but also for things like education, training, consultants. Look for mailing lists (such as anthrodesign) or face-to-face groups (such as UX book club).

I find these communities can be incredibly useful, especially if you’re new to their field and want to get up to speed. When I was getting established in this field, I made sure I did as many of these things as possible. I met people, talked about stuff, became part of the community.

Formal education

Is this necessary? I’m really in two minds about this topic. I certainly think that you can be a great user researcher but not have any formal education. Yet there are clear benefits to such an education. Everyone interprets and makes sense of what they see in research, from their own perspective—which is why it’s a good idea to have multiple researchers. I believe it’s useful to have an academic standpoint underpinning this perspective. For example, anthropology has several schools of thought that provide frameworks for analysing observed behaviour. This is a definite benefit, even if they reject that standpoint.

So, whether you want to do a university course is up to you. If you’re like me you won’t be able to find a degree or masters program that is focused enough, or flexible enough, to give you just what you want without lots of what you don’t want. In that case, more targeted training courses are the way to go. For example, earlier this year I did a one day course on multivariate data analysis to brush up on quantitative techniques. The course was part of the Australian Market and Social Research Society‘s (AMSRS) winter school, and a good example of utilising a complimentary field.

Other short courses you might want to look into, could include: facilitation skills, active listening, “story listening”, mentoring/coaching as well as courses specific to particular research methods.

Out-sourcing

Consultants and freelancers can be hired to get projects done, but you can also learn from them. You might go so far as to get them in purely to act as mentors. Some organisations have mentoring programs, such as the IA Institute. It is becoming more popular for consultancies who operate in this space, to offer mentoring as a service as opposed to just doing the work for their clients.

Going guerrilla

I don’t mean you should start wearing a Che t-shirt and ambushing your boss with demands for social reform and more involvement in user research projects, although that may very well work for you. What I mean is that there are some less traditional ways of building expertise and experience, to gain a foot hold in the field, whilst keeping your day job.

• One could be the literally use so-called “guerrilla” techniques: cheaper and less formal research methods. For example, doing research in-house rather than recruiting external participants. This might be enough to allow you to add on research to current projects or fit it in during “down time”.
• If your organisation already has a user research or UX capability, you might want to shadow a team member who is a more experienced researcher, this will be a good way to learn and start to get involved.
• You could start moonlighting by doing work on the side for your own clients, friends or family. I did this when I was really breaking through, supplementing my web design services with UX and user research.
• You could take part in crowdsource projects such as Drupal 7 UX.

Gaining trust

It’s interesting that Hans says “it’s not easy for people to entrust such an important activity to me”. First of all, if you’re in a position where your colleagues (especially senior stakeholders) think research is that important, then that’s an excellent start! Possibly the biggest problem with web UX is a lack of understanding or value in research. More often than not we have to fight to get the time and resources to do it (or do enough of it).

To answer Hans’ question though, their trust in you personally is something you can work on. Using some of the techniques I’ve described below, you can build up expertise and visibility which should convince others you can be trusted with the task.

Mixed methods

In terms of building trust when you’re doing user research, make use of triangulation or a “mixed method” approach. This essentially means using a few different forms of research to help balance out the risks associated with each. This gives increased confidence in the results, and thus in you.

For example, you could back up your user interviews with some third party statistics that related to the topic being studied. Secondary research of this nature, particularly when it is sourced from big players (eg academic or big consultancies like Forrester, Nielsen, Roy Morgan, NN/g) can really bolster confidence in your work and make important stakeholders into believers rather than ardent sceptics. Doing this might also help you build bridges with other departments such as marketing.

Starting from scratch

If your organisation has no UX or user research capability, you’ll need to engage in some self promotion and reputation building. Here are my tips:

• Show initiative by willing to learn (eg try things yourself, do training).
• Make yourself the resident expert on user research.
• Write book reports or do “brown bag” presentations to your colleagues on the books you’ve read.
• Create an internal newsletter or blog that allows you to send around links to pertinent articles. Compile a persuasive argument for why user research should be done, and for you to be involved.
• Represent your organisation at conferences, getting to know the experts in the field. Bring that knowledge back to your organisation, but also let everyone else know your organisation is serious about user research and that you’re the go-to guy (or gal).
• Make yourself the liaison for any external parties doing user research work (consultants, contractors etc).
• Invite guest speakers to come in and give a talk about UX and user research to your organisation. Make sure you’re the person they deal with.

All of this will, over time, mean your colleagues start to think of you when they think of user research. You can convert this association into permission; permission to get out there and do some research!

Then, do whatever small pieces of research you can, but make suggestions about further research that could be done and the benefits that this would bring—such as increased confidence in the results, increased clarity, increased depth or richness of information. This lets those who make the decisions know what the possibilities are. Back this up with a fairly concrete plan for the work: how much will it cost? how long will it take? how will it improve the work that is already being done?

If you’re a UX practitioner

If you’re a UX practitioner who doesn’t have much experience in doing research, I would recommend:

• Don’t get too hooked up on methodology.
• Let them talk! Don’t hound your research participants for feedback on a specific usability issue.
• Think about useful as well as usable, what does your audience need and what will they use?
• Use activities and design games to get info from users without grilling them.
• It’s not (just) usability testing, though that might form part of your research.
• Think critically, why has that person said that or reacted that way?

How I got started in user research

My first piece of user research involved card sorting. They were graphic cards, rather than text, showing different types of cars. This allowed me to get an idea of how people who didn’t know a lot about cars would classify the different styles (or “body shapes”) and how they might go about choosing the car that was right for them. This worked very well and allowed the design team to challenge the client’s view of how the vehicles in their range should be organised on the website. Their view was very much according to the automotive industry view of things which whilst technically correct, was at odds with how your average punter sees things. Using our research, we could think about better ways of communicating with website users.

It was far from a perfect project, I was operating with very little resources and looking back on it I can see there were many things I would differently now to improve the method. Yet the results were very useful and this led me to continue my shift from general web design into the field of UX and user research.

I took it upon myself to do this work—which I would now call design research—to help create the IA and UI. Nobody else in the team was doing it and I knew enough about cars to know that not everyone else knows that much about cars, so we needed to explore how regular people would group them and what they would call each group. Hence the card sorting.

I recruited participants within my company, I ran the sessions largely in my own time and learnt a lot of things as I went. I also read Krug.

I remember writing out scripts for exactly what I was going to say and setting up a makeshift observation room by using a video camera connected to a TV set by a very long cable (to no avail since nobody turned up to watch!).

Despite its shortcomings, all of this was noticed by those running the project, and by senior management. Soon “usability” made a regular appearance on client proposals, capability statements and project plans. I was encouraged to learn more and to improve the quality of what the team was producing.

Later in may career I was working as a consultant, which almost by necessity means I had to investigate and analyse before compiling recommendations—which is, in essence, research. I was spending a lot of time undertaking various kinds of research (user research, stakeholder research, usability testing etc) and less time designing and implementing, which meant a lot of practice with techniques such as interviewing, groups workshops, card sorting.

From then on, it’s been a matter of doing more projects; refining my approach, practising techniques, trying new methods and tools.

Above all, my ultimate piece of advice would be to just jump in and have a go; it’s easier than you probably think!

Related posts:

1. Talk to your staff
2. Guerrilla user recruitment
3. Research methods workshop at UX Australia

But I’ll let you in on a little secret: I hardly read any of them on a regular basis, I just don’t have time. Again this is nothing unusual.

The ones I do find myself reading quite regularly are grouped fairly precariously under the the label “Strategy”. Here are my top 5 (in alphabetical order):

• acidlabs (Stephen Collins)

  Stephen (or @trib as you might know him) is passionate, if nothing else. He writes on the topics of social media, government 2.0 and collaboration. His posts are enthusiastic, intelligent and well written. I might not share his opinions on some issues, but I do look forward to what he has to say. Stephen also sets a great example for anyone wishing to build a reputation and establish themselves as a thought leader in a certain field.

• Anecdote (Shawn Callahan & Mark Schenk)

  Shawn and Mark don’t blog as often as others in this list, but when they do it’s always a well considered and informative piece. The topics are quite diverse but mostly centre around stories (ie story telling for business) and collaboration. I’ve learnt a lot from reading their posts, and attending their “story listening” workshop, that has helped me during user research and stakeholder consultation.

• Column Two (James Robertson)

  James is my former employer, and I learnt a lot from him during my time at Step Two, and have continued to do so since then. James has his finger on many pulses, and is able to sift out the most useful bits of the tide of information that comes his way. Topics include intranets, content management, knowledge management and a whole bunch of things around these.

• Seth’s Blog (Seth Godin)

  Seth has a real talent for boiling things down to their essence and then stating, simply, the core lessons you should take away. I’ve found his words on business, marketing and customer service incredibly useful and often amusing. His style is frank and to the point, which makes his writing honest and sometimes confronting. But you know it’s real, informed and motivated by his desire for things to make sense and for us all to do things in ways which make sense. Probably my favourite of all.

• Trends in the Living Networks (Ross Dawson)

  Does this guy get around or what? I find that almost everywhere I look (or read to be more precise) Ross pops up, and says something really smart. I honestly don’t know how he has his finger in so many pies, and still has time to write great blog posts, and be a father to his brood of kids! I’ll admit, sometimes it goes over my head, but the breadth and depth of his knowledge is impressive. Equally impressive is his willingness to pass on this knowledge, adopting the very “now” practice of releasing his work to the public domain (for example Implementing Enterprise 2.0)

So there’s nothing (necessarily) about UX, user research, web design or anything on that practical level. I find these blogs worth reading because they’re insightful, multifaceted and inspiring. They keep me thinking about the big picture, not staring down at my toes worrying about low level, day-to-day details.

No related posts.