Daniel Lafreniere — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 20:41:39 GMT

What I’m saying is that in 30 minutes, you can extract loads of information from a user. By applying this approach to a certain number of users and then doing analysis, you can come up with personas. The complete paper addresses all those issues. Just hoping it will get published on B&A.

Daniel Lafreniere — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:05:25 GMT

Wow! Thank’s to all of you for your great comments =).

@Cennydd: I do agree with you that there is a risk of bias. As a matter of fact, there is a bias, but, by interviewing more than one surrogate user per job profile, we reduce it is some way. Of course, when it’s possible, I do prefer interviewing + observing real users in their environment (work/home). However, in the projects I was involved in the past years, doing a “real” ethnographic study would have been impossible for different reasons (cost, time and users access).

@Jonathan: you said “When designing a web site, it would seem a bit odd not to account for the obvious possibility that people who call the call center are different from people who prefer to use web.” Absolutely. However, it gives us a good indication of what is mostly needed/asked by users. Questions asked over the phone or email should be aswered on the Website (well, most of the time ;-).

@Ken: you said “I believe this is simply one tool in our tool belt. I don’t think any single source of data is sufficient to make any remotely important design decisions.” Absolutely. I usually combine this approach with web analytics (when there is an existing website), call log analysis, etc.

@Matthew: you said “I still find that I run into barriers of time cost and scope. What have you found to be effective in overcoming these types of concerns?” Well, doing this kind of user research takes usually no more than 20 days (this includes interviews, analysis + report), which is not expensive. The cost of NOT doing user research greatly exceeds the cost of doing it. User research pays by itself just by knowing on what we must focus (what users want/needs). Also, having “hard” facts, as opposed to suppositions, reduces those never-ending discussions during design sessions.

Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Daniel Lafreniere