Matt was co-inspiration for this talk. He couldn’t be here today as he had to deliver a pizza.
Sometimes you have to treat users like children. Children you care for and want to succeed, but that tend to be whiny and want more than you can give them.
Empathy. Sympathy. Anyathy. At some level you need to connect with users. Your job in working with them is more to understand than to be understood.
They lie to protect their jobs, knowledge, screw with things... Always take with a grain of salt what a user says.
Again, it’s about understanding. If you can’t see the world how your users see it (or close to) how do you propose to design?
Identify who you need to listen to, then do it. Sounds simple, but in practice it can be difficult.
We all know the difference between an open-ended and a closed-ended question. Until it comes time to interview users.
PD typically tries to involve all stakeholders, but here we focus solely on the end user.
Two recommended books. 1) User and Task Analysis for Interface Design. 2) Observing the User Experience. Yes, that is an ordered list.