Table Of ContentNo
9
SECOND EDITION
Erika Hall
JUST ENOUGH
RESEARCH
Foreword by Kio Stark
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Copyright © 2019 Erika Hall
First edition published 2013
All rights reserved
Publisher: Jeffrey Zeldman
Designer: Jason Santa Maria
Executive director: Katel LeDû
Lead editor: Lisa Maria Marquis
Editor: Caren Litherland
Book producer: Ron Bilodeau
Editors, first edition: Rose Fox, Krista Stevens, Tina Lee
Indexer, first edition: Sally Kerrigan
Compositor, first edition: Rob Weychert
Book producer, first edition: Nellie McKesson
ISBN: 978-1-937557-89-8
A Book Apart
New York, New York
http://abookapart.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 | Chapter 1
Enough Is Enough
10 | Chapter 2
The Basics
41 | Chapter 3
The Process
61 | Chapter 4
Organizational Research
80 | Chapter 5
User and Customer Research
96 | Chapter 6
Competitive Research
104 | Chapter 7
Evaluative Research
117 | Chapter 8
Analysis and Models
135 | Chapter 9
Surveys
162 | Chapter 10
Analytics
|
172 Conclusion
|
173 Not Enough Thanks
|
175 Resources
|
182 References
|
185 Index
FOREWORD
you, lucky reader, are about to learn everything you always
wanted to know about research but were afraid to ask. With
her trademark deadpan wit and incisive clarity, Erika Hall walks
you through what research is (and isn’t), how to convince your
team to dedicate money and effort to it, how to work on it
collaboratively, and—here’s the part you could spend a whole
MBA semester on and still not have all the answers—how to
actually do it.
Erika recommends that her readers “make friends with real-
ity,” which may be the most perfect definition of what it means
to do design and product research I’ve ever heard. The reality
you are invited to make friends with is that the world is full
of people who are different from you. And, as a person who
designs products and experiences for people, it is your job to
understand their perspectives, needs, and desires in their real-
life contexts.
Opening yourself and your work up to what total strangers
have to say can be scary stuff. It may challenge your entire
worldview, cause you to question closely held beliefs, even
lead you to change the way you move through the universe.
I would argue that this is a good thing. Talking to people to
find out what the world looks like, sounds like, and feels like
to them—what it is to them—should be your standard operat-
ing procedure.
For the work of inventing, adapting, and improving the
products you make for people—as Erika will deftly convince
you—such questioning is absolutely necessary.
—Kio Stark
1
ENOUGH IS
ENOUGH
ThroughouT 2001, the internet buzzed with rumors of “Gin-
ger” or simply it, the revolutionary future of personal transpor-
tation. It would change everything. Jeff Bezos was into it. Bono
was into it. Tens of millions of dollars in venture investment
had been poured into it.
Finally, in December of that year, it arrived—and the Segway
debuted with a counterrevolutionary thud.
These days, Segways seldom appear outside of warehouse
corridors except as a novelty, miracles of engineering convey-
ing awkward gaggles of tourists as they hum serenely by. It’s
as though the finest minds of the late twentieth century envi-
sioned a brave new world ushered in by amphibious duck tour.
Transportation is a complicated system with strong conven-
tions. The more industrialized the society, the more people
traveling faster, the stronger the conventions. Otherwise, more
collisions and chaos. There are currently four fundamental per-
sonal ground-transportation options: walking (or wheelchair),
bicycle, motorbike, and automobile.
For these options, there are two basic paths: the sidewalk
and the street. Pedestrians and individuals in wheelchairs get to
use the sidewalk. Vehicles, including bicycles, go in the street. A
ENOugh IS ENOugh 1
transportation journey has a beginning and an end. If you travel
by personal vehicle, you have to store your vehicle at each end,
either inside or outside. Bikes go on racks outside or wherever
they fit inside. Cars and motorbikes go into authorized zones
on the street, parking lots, or garages. Reliable transportation is
essential to daily life, as a flat tire will quickly confirm.
No matter what our personal transportation preferences,
we all share the rules and conventions of our locales, and most
people share very common needs. People need to get to school
or work on time. They need to carry groceries or children. They
need to travel through sunshine and rain.
This established system is used with relatively small regional
variations by billions of people around the world. But the
Segway didn’t fit. It was slower than a car and at least ten times
the price of a decent commuter bicycle. Even those who could
afford it weren’t sure what to do with it. You couldn’t take the
kids to school on it. You couldn’t commute twenty miles on it.
You couldn’t pack the family into it or make out in its back seat.
Critics jumped on the dorky aspect and the high price, but
those weren’t the dooming factors. Early adopters often put up
with cost and ridicule for innovations that meet real needs. But
no one needs a Segway.
What does the failure of the Segway have to teach design
research? That where humans are concerned, context is
everything.
ENOUGH!
A little learning is a dangerous thing.
—alexander pope
You like a little danger, don’t you?
To design, to code, to write is to embrace danger, to plunge
ahead into the unknown, making new things out of constantly
changing materials, exposing yourself to criticism and failure
every single day. It’s like being a sand painter in a windstorm,
except Buddhist monks probably don’t have to figure out how
to fit IAB ad units into their mandalas.
2 JuST ENOugh RESEARCh
