Good article by Alison Black about the pros and cons of ethnographic research. I tend to agree with Don “official curmedgeon” Norman’s kneejerk comment about Personas in his Core77 interview, (so many people obsess over Personas while ignoring the tasks and designs to achieve them) — yet reading her analysis of the bigger framing, she makes great points too. I believe personas are good for framing and context but not for tactical design criteria. They make a good intro to a potentially better use of scarce design resources: iterative rough prototyping. Give the article a read.
Shift6 » Is ethnographic research worth it?
The ‘question authority’ comment came about a third-way through the interview where Norman criticises the techniques used by companies who are committed to user-centred design. His comments focus particularly on ethnographic research and the creation of personas. Norman complains that, interesting as these processes are, they fail to connect to the engineers and designers creating products and services and so are, in effect, a waste of time. What Norman wants, he says, is processes that focus on the task, rather than on people. I know what he means, but worry that he’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
So let’s take a short step back from Norman’s comments and remember what preceded the typical user-centred processes many companies now use. Often, nothing.
Don is a great foil and antagonist to the overall practice of UX. Even when I don’t agree with him he makes me think harder about the underlying principles of my methods, and what I methods choose to push for and employ on various product design challenges.
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