Grab bag of interesting stuff

Well, I’ve found them interesting. These are sites/places I’ve been looking at but didn’t get around to posting about at the time:

• I got momentarily distracted at LiveLeak.com thanks to this video of a hell landing in the old Hong Kong airport (having just had wild ride into the new airport myself) – and the other eyebrow raising video’s of plane landings
• Big ups to Arthur for keeping me in the know with American politics. Check him out on Amerinz
• I was reminded the other day how much I luv boxes and arrows Check it out if you’re into good design
• So Google have launched their own browser. I dunno – maybe I’m a cynic or maybe I just don’t trust organisations that try to take over the (virtual) world. We’ll see. I like a bit of competition and would prefer to choose from a number of companies that do a few things well than one that does a whole lotta stuff not so well.
• Our “Culture and Heritage Minister says “The internet is now so much an essential part of life and commerce that access to it can be seen as “a human right”. Riiiiiiiggghhht.
• Cynic of the week goes to: The Economist for their story on Cybernationalism
• Thanks again to The Oracle for helping me solve the mystery of the carpet stain – and how to get rid of it. Er – The Oracle being our term for the www.
• I’m now on Facebook but in my typical identity-risk adverse way haven’t added that much to my profile, and still am a bit mystified about the value – I don’t want to link to random people I don’t know. We’ll see – I’ll ask around peep’s I know and see if I can set up a few meaningful links.
• Twitter Twitter Twitter – what’s the point?. I know – EGO
• Spore gets released on Friday. So does Stalker – Shadow of Chernobyl. Whee heee. If you’re not a gamer you won’t care.
• Have a look at newtondotgeek Cool.
• And just because my dinner is ready, a little bit of a Bit On The Side…. I don’t know how I feel about the conclusion – perhaps those that know me can tell me if it’s true:
  Which OS are You?

My husband says “yeah” Yeah wot? It’s accurate ?

Not so extreme

It was with a sense of anticipation that I clicked on the link to read an article titled “Extreme User Research” on the Boxs and Arrows site. The article and the comments added to it make for an interesting if not challenging read. It’s based on the idea that, if you can’t get access to ‘real’ users, get data from people who deal with the users – eg call centre staff. This is a good idea, but one that in my experience tends to be the default research method.  Many organisations who don’t really want to invest in the design process (and that is the case more often than not).

So, as one commenter points out – doing research with ‘real’ users is probably the extreme!

But even ‘real’ users have their biases and many won’t be able to articulate what they really want to any level of sophistication. So multiple sources of data would be my recommendation. Talk to users, talk to people who have to help users, look at your traffic stats, conduct user testing, look at your competition etc. And, accept that your final design will need to evolve anyway and include that as an ongoing activity (hah – this is even more difficult than getting funds for proper user research!)