◊ user research

core tenets

• > Aim to be proven wrong.
• ~ suspend judgement

tricks of the trade

• > If you want to know what people might do in the future, you need them to tell you true stories about what they’ve done in the past
• ~ reflect, don't react
• ~ you want to know a small number of representative users really well

be aware of footguns

• ~ surveys are too easy
• ~ Split Testing is susceptible to local maxima
• ~ in user research, talking to the wrong people is the worst thing — you learn nothing
• ~ if people involved in the design do user testing, small hints and leading questions quickly creep in
• > When you make assumptions about your users, you run the risk of being wrong
  • or: ~ if you don't talk to potential customers, you drown in your assumptions