Erika Hall

Ethnographic design research allows design teams to:

come up with pat, and potentially useless, answers

a harsh maxim for

knee-jerk answers

Research is not asking people what they like

“Like” is not a part of the critical thinker’s vocabulary.

On some level, we all want the things we do to be liked (particularly on Facebook), so it’s easy to treat likability as a leading success indicator. But the concept of “liking” is as subjective as it is empty.

You’ll need to explain to them why interviews with method and purpose are more valuable than having a social conversation with a random person—and why it really doesn’t matter where you do them, as long as they’re done right.

Research is just another name for critical thinking

Ideally, everyone who is on the design team should also participate in the research