Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories

I just completed my MS in HCI and Doorbells helped me so much before I started my first UER job. Not only did it easy a lot of jitters about potential worst case scenarios that I would run into but it also made me feel like I was being mentored before even starting! I feel like a lot of UER articles tend to be general and not have real world examples. Doorbells breaks that norm, I learned so much. Worth the read

I don’t have any connection to user research, but I was curious, and it was fun to get a sense of the work and associated ethical dilemmas through stories.

We need more researchers like Steve writing about what is actually going on in the world - and as always he writes in a relatable way.rarely do we talk about what happens when things get hairy, get dangerous, and treading on major ethical boundaries. This is a rare gift where that space is not only acknowledged, but seen as part and parcel to doing research.This is a great and necessary text for course work and for those working inside the industry.

Theory is well and good, but it can only take you so far. A much, much needed addition to the Ux canon.

On the surface, you'd think this book is simply a collection of amusing stories about what can (and does) go wrong when conducting field-based research. But read more deeply and you'll see the meta message of how agile, resourceful, creative, and driven field-based researchers are. It's a tribute to their labor and their commitment. Novice researchers can read this book and really get a feel for what it takes to cope with the challenges of research in people's homes, cars, offices, and various and sundry other places. If you're interested in UX or market research, this is a great book to understand what you'd be getting yourself into. Granted, many of these "war stories" are extreme and not at all representative, but you do learn what these researchers must do to produce results. Experienced researchers will enjoy this book because it is actually hilarious, but they might also say "too soon!" and wince (I sure did). There are moments when I could not finish the anecdote because I could not face the memories of my own, similar, cringe-worthy experiences. The craft of research is more than these stories, however; there is a whole aspect of the struggle not covered here (that is to say, the intellectual struggle a good sociologist, anthropologist, or psychologist goes through). Don't mistake these stories for the totality of field-based research, but certainly read and enjoy them.

I looked at the title (alluding to heavy artillery) and the title, referencing danger and dead batteries, failure scenarios for any product, catastrophic failures & missteps!So it seems like this was a book about findings from research studies -- possibly catastrophic failures like a tank being prone to failure in a dessert because some switch relies on a AAA battery.But no, it's a book about dangers and failure that RESEARCHERS had while doing user research. As in, this is only slightly more specific than another possible book, "People That Had a Bad Day Working at an Office Job."There was a huge, fluffy intro, a table of contents that references another hierarchal level of tables of contentses, unnecessary color, and no margins... because you're not going to be learning anything or taking notes. And then the first story opens up with literally somebody forgot to set their alarm the night before and had a bad day at work. I thought that was an opener... it wasn't, that was the whole first story. And then it proceeds directly to the next unrelated story, bathroom reader style.But for normal work stories, it's fine.

This book does an excellent job of humanizing user research. Ultimately, we are all just humans talking to each other.

This book is made out of 100% metaphorical nuggets juice.

This book is a collection of user research ‘war stories’ contributed by dozens of different researchers. To prevent this being a rambling free-for-all, Portigal has organised the stories into chapters (such as ‘The Perils of Fieldwork’). The borders between these chapters are fuzzy: some stories could equally well appear in another chapter. Perhaps this is inevitable, since every story is essentially of this form: I did some user research, then something happened that I didn’t expect and this is how I felt about it. The stories are an interesting way to benchmark one’s own user research practice and to vicariously experience once-in-a-lifetime situations. After many of these stories, I found myself asking, “What would I have done in this situation?” and that seems to me a good way to become a reflective practitioner. If the book comprised only these stories I’m not sure I would have made it to the end but Portigal’s introductions to each chapter and his ‘Takeaways’ at the end of each chapter provide real insight. The book is worth it for these alone.