I spoke recently at Shift, the IDSA conference held at RISD. I outlined seventeen ways to not suck at research:
1. Quit worrying about jargon
2. Think more broadly about which people you want to learn about
3. Garbage in, garbage out
4. Give other people the space to tell their stories
5. Follow up, and then follow up, and then follow up
6. Do you really want to use a survey? Probably not.
7. Collect and use natural language
8. Don’t forget that any research process with real live humans is hard
9. Breathe their air
10. Learning anything new requires rapport, and building rapport takes time
11. Finding insights requires pattern matching, creativity, synthesis
12. Personas are user-centered bullshit
13. Phil McKinney says “You’re probably not listening.”
14. Practice noticing stuff and telling stories (updated: read more here)
15. Do some improv
16. Embrace pop culture
17. Don’t forget about culture and social norms
The presentation was very well received, and I hope to share this material with another group before too long.
Tags: 17, advice, design research, IDSA, persona, presentation, providence, rhode island, risd, seventeen, shift, suck, user research
tools around it. Maybe they could even innovate something new while they are at it. Are we really at the point where reputable news services can create stories based on MySpace pages and email interviews? What is an email interview anyway? #13 of Steve Portigal’s Seventeen ways to not suck at research is: Phil McKinney says, “You’re probably not listening.” How do you listen in an email interview? I guess there weren’t many follow-up questions.
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to make the craft seem “scientific”. But why spend time defining the characteristics of each segment if it turns out everybody is a mix of all of them —“a Straddler . . . with certain Learner/Navigator undercurrents”? Agreed. As I’vewritten before, personas are user-centered bullshit.
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All This ChittahChattah: Seventeen ways to not suck at research
Pingback by Matkalla: Blog 12.23.07 @ 11:56 amHow about a post on #12? I’d love to hear the story.
Comment by dennis 05.10.07 @ 6:56 am[...] Lifted straight from a post by Steve Portigal, the principal in “a boutique firm that brings together user research, design and business strategy”. Read it. Live it. [...]
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[...] Lire l’article original Publié par Gabriel Rodrigue le mercredi 16 mai 2007 à 10H10 Commentez | Envoyez | Imprimez cet article [...]
Pingback by Réussir en groupe de recherche 05.22.07 @ 8:57 pm[...] I’m not being a research snob here. I understand the timeline didn’t support the teams doing their own research. But Microsoft supplied personals. Aren’t personals proxies for research? Or, are they, (as I’ve said before) simply user-centered bullshit. For all the power they are supposed to have with design teams to keep them focused on designing for the user, they didn’t help at all in this case. [...]
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[...] Steve Portigal: “Personas are user-centered bullshit”. [...]
Pingback by Peter Van Dijck’s Guide to Ease » Blog Archive » Personas are user-centered bullshit 12.21.07 @ 8:56 am
[...] Steve Portigal, whom I’ve met and whom I don’t think is insane, recently said in a presentation that “personas are user-centered bullshit”. [...]
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[...] Personas sind hip, ohne Frage. Kein Portal zum Thema Informationsarchitektur oder User Experience, in dem das Thema nicht diskutiert wird. In der Forrester Wave EuropeanInteractive Agencies Q4 2007 wird das Arbeiten mit Personas sogar (als einzige Methode) als Kriterium für die Bewertung von Agenturen verwendet. Ich denke, man sollte den Einsatz von Personas genau abwägen. Auf der einen Seite können sie helfen, Zielgruppen zu kommunizieren (zum beispiel an den Kunden). Dadurch das abstrakten Research-Daten durch eine konkrete Person dargestellt werden, besteht jedoch die Gefahr, Eigenschaften und Bedürfnisse zu kommunizieren, die sich aus dem Research gar nicht ergeben, die aber durch Abbildung und Beschreibung der Person impliziert werden.Joshua Porter hat einen sehr lesenswerten Beitrag verfasst, den er Personas and the Advantage of Designing for Yourself nennt. Darin fragt er zurecht, warum Personas eigentlich bisher so unscharf definiert sind, und warum so wenige Beispiel veröffentlicht wurden. Er stellt zudem verschiedene Meinungen zu Personas gegenüber, beispielsweise die von Steve Portigal, der in einer Präsentation meint, “personas are user-centered bullshit” und die von Peter Merholz, der Personas “enormously valuable” findet.Joshua Porter: Personas and the Advantage of Designing for Yourself [...]
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[...] Par Eric DI POL, mercredi 30 janvier 2008 :: Méthodologie – Conception :: #202 :: rss Un des sujets du moment dans la blogosphère US du design interactif concerne l’utilisation des personas. Steve Portigal a attaqué le premier, déclarant “Personas are user-centered bullshit”. Joshua Porter (Bokardo design) a riposté, suivi de Peter Moholz, Adaptative Path a suivi, Jared Spool a remis une couche…Bref, c’est ce qu’on appelle une conversation animée 
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Pingback by Personas or not Personas ? - SuperFiction, le blog ::: marketing interactif, experience utilisateur, conception multimedia 01.30.08 @ 2:46 pm
[...] 版权声明：转载时请以超链接形式标明文章原始出处和作者信息及本声明http://uiclub.blogbus.com/logs/17806287.html 在研究中没有被吸收的17 种方法________by Steve Portigal 虽然还没有在工作中具体展开用户角色的概念，但我一直关注着personas的发展，今天看到Steve Portigal 在Shift上的发言，稍感彷徨，其实我也在一直反问personas的具体价值何在，感性和理性的分析达成的结果能给我们设计带来质的变化么？ 在IDSA的会议上Steve Portigal 讲了17条不要吸收的方法，放到这里大家来评判下。“百家争鸣，百花齐放”我略微翻译了下，可以去看原文：Seventeen ways to not suck at research 我最近在RISD举行的IDSA会议上讲话，我略述17种方式不应在研究中被吸收： 1. 摆脱术语 （jargon行话、黑话、粗俗下流的话）的骚扰折磨； 2. 对你想要了解的哪些人进行更广泛的思索；3. 垃圾进，垃圾出（悖入悖出）； 4. 给他人空间讲述他们的故事； 5. 追踪，然后追踪，继续追踪 6. 你真的想要做一次调查吗？或许没必要； 7. 收集并使用自然语言； 8. 不要忘记任何与现实生活人的研究过程是艰难的； 9. 呼吸他们的空气； 10. 学习与新需求紧密相关的任何事情，并且建立与之相关的获取时间； 11. 寻找洞察需求模型的一致性，创造性，综合性； 12. Persona是用户中心的胡说； 13. 菲尔·麦金尼（Phil McKinney）说“或许你没有倾听”； 14. 实行公告内容和生动的故事(更新：详细了解)；15. 做一些即兴表演； 16. 接受流行文化； 17. 别忘了文化和社会规范； 随机文章：2008年到来了…… 2008-02-06天南地北说新闻！ 2007-12-04在路上＿为自尊的生存！ 2007-11-18Ryana(UXstudy)的来信! 2007-10-16PV,PR, 2007-06-02收藏到：Del.icio.us Tag： 引用地址： jameguilin 发表于14:30:22 | 编辑 | 继续话题 | 转发 | 推荐 [...]
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[...] оûյ17ַ-UI;ѡ(201) ߣ Steve Portigal Դ UI ʱ䣺 200841 Ȼûڹоչûɫĸһֱעpersonasķչ쿴Steve Portigal ShiftϵķԣԸ壬ʵҲһֱpersonasľֵڣԺԵķɵĽܸƴʵı仯ô IDSAĻSteve Portigal 17Ҫյķŵ¡ټٻš £ȥԭģSeventeen ways to not suck at research RISDеIDSAϽ17ַʽӦобգ 1. jargonлڻĻɧĥ 2. Ҫ˽Щ˽и㷺˼3. 㣳 4. ˿ռ佲ǵĹ£ 5. ٣Ȼ٣ 6. Ҫһε𣿻ûҪ 7. ռʹȻԣ 8. Ҫκʵ˵оǼѵģ 9. ǵĿ 10. ѧϰصκ飬ҽ֮صĻȡʱ䣻 11. ѰҶģ͵һԣԣۺԣ 12. Personaûĵĺ˵ 13. ƶᣨPhil McKinney˵û 14. ʵйݺĹ(£ϸ˽)15. һЩ˱ݣ 16. Ļ 17. Ļ淶 ԭӣhttp://uiclub.blogbus.com/logs/17806287.html UI;ѡ α༭ vincent ת벻ҪκͼƬϢ עӾͬ [...]
Pingback by оûյ17ַ-UI;ѡ (201 - Ӿͬ) 03.31.08 @ 5:22 pmYou rock, Steve! Bold and right-on as usual. I wish more people understood how simple and simultaneously complex those 17 points really are.
Comment by jzc 05.29.08 @ 5:46 pm
[...] All This ChittahChattah » Seventeen ways to not suck at research SAVE [...]
Pingback by leemcivor's ucd Bookmarks on Delicious 08.21.09 @ 4:21 am[...] contexts where the products can be debased. This is what Steve Portigal got fired up about (eg http://www.portigal.com/blog/seventeen-ways-to-not-suck-at-research/ ). It seems that this function of personas is one of the biggest [...]
Pingback by personas and typification.exe « Designthinkingbydj's Blog 12.03.09 @ 1:05 pm[...] Seventeen ways to not suck at research, number 9 was Breathe their air, my response to the increasing desire for remote ethnographic-like [...]
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