(a quick definition, given that I’ve discovered that English is at least three separate languages: to rock out = to perform exceptionally well and give great satisfaction, as say, a rock band might ‘rock out’ on stage’.)
These days when I’m doing any kind of user research, rather than going to my secret consultant place and [...]

I’m doing some guerrilla research for a new web service this Friday and Saturday in London and I’m looking for participants. The specs are pretty loose - you need to use internet banking and be responsible for managing your own and/or your household’s finances. (You’re not allowed to be a financial expert tho, or extraordinarily [...]

So, recently we’ve been talking about Qualitative Research and how it’s not so scientific, but that ain’t bad.
We identified three ways that you *might* make Qualitative Research more scientific and have been pulling those approaches apart. They are to:

Use a relatively large sample size (which we destroyed here)
Ensure that your test environment doesn’t change (which [...]

So, earlier we were talking about whether you can or should attempt to make qualitative research more scientific, and that there are three ways you might go about doing this, being to:

Use a relatively large sample size (deconstructed in Part One)

Ensure that your test environment doesn’t change (which we’ll talk about now)
Ensure that your test [...]

If you’re into qualitative research at all, it wouldn’t have taken long before you had someone ask you about the statistical significance of your research and how you could back your findings with such a small sample size, or to find others out there trying to make qualitative research look more scientific by trying to [...]

Who knew a games controller could wreak such havok. Head over to WiiHaveAProblem and be astounded by the number of TV sets that people have taken out when they’ve been playing with their new Wii and the controller has been thrown out of their hands with such force as to break the strap. Carnage ensues.
What [...]

Two clever companies noticed I was doing something that was not making them money recently and emailed me to let me know they’d noticed. And then they tried selling me more stuff. As though I must have just got bored or forgot what I was doing when I was supposed to be spending money. As [...]

Customer research too expensive? Unless you’re working for an university with stringent ethical requirements to meet - you’re making your job too hard. Ethnography* is everywhere.
Last night, after Girly Geeks, I was on the tube on the way home and beside me sat a man performing a task that I *wish* I could have designed [...]

One of the great challenges of Interaction Design these days is that we now have a plethora of new ways to design interaction on the web than we did just a few short years ago. Drag and drop is probably one of the best - creating a sense of empowerment over the interface that can [...]

Of course I’ve just finished a week of asking users lots of interesting questions and getting a vast amount of even more interesting information in response. On this particular project we asked quite a few people (15) lots of questions over quite a broad spread of topics. So, now I’m trying to work out what [...]