Developing for "Somebody": How to Truly Know Your Users
summary
Argues that building for “somebody” requires doing contextual inquiry: immersive observation plus targeted questions in the user’s workspace, recorded and artifact-backed, typically in ~1-hour sessions. Uses sticky-note affinity notes (aiming for 50–100 affinity notes per hour) grouped into an affinity diagram (digital tools like Mural acceptable) with about 3–7 items per group. Shows concrete outcomes: a CRM implementation for University of Michigan uncovers Excel-and-duct-tape workflows and yields feature recommendations; a public library study produces a shared-feedback storage fix.
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chapters (19)
- 0:00Introduction
- 2:22Designing for somebody
- 5:38Contextual Inquiry
- 10:02The Protocol
- 14:47Affinity Diagram
- 16:52Contextual Inquiries
- 18:07Affinity Ater Diagram
- 19:32Internship
- 21:12Usability Testing
- 21:52User Observations
- 24:20Deep Observations
- 27:16Finding the Audience
- 28:25Reporting Findings
- 29:34Evaluating
- 30:17Range of Applications
- 31:29Content
- 32:23Hierarchy
- 33:21Infinity Wall
- 37:11Being Flexible
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