đź“šReflections on: Just Enough Research
A handy little book that gets you started with UX Research in no time, or helps you brush up on your knowledge of research fundamentals.
You know this quote, right?
If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
– Albert Einstein
It came to my mind several times when reading Just Enough Research by Erika Hall, because it shows that Erika clearly does understand UX & design research well enough and in depth. And thanks to that, she was successful in making the topic more accessible to a wider audience.
I just loved how Erika was able to describe subjects that other books make seem almost intimidatingly complicated. For busy people trying to learn the basics of UX research, this is an excellent start. (And I hope they’ll keep learning, because UX Research is of course way, way deeper and broader than what any one book could cover). For seasoned researchers and designers, it’s a useful reminder of what actually matters and how to explain the research process to those who are not interested in a lengthly academic treatise full of jargon.
My only nit-pick would be that an extra page or two on qualitative data analysis would be useful. Especially if the book was aimed at beginners. Qualitative data analysis is a topic that I personally find notoriously difficult to explain. I read a couple of books on it, studied it during my MSc., analyzed data from 500+ sessions over the last decade or so, and wrangled a thousand post-it notes on large exploratory studies. But I still find that explaining qualitative data analysis doesn’t come easy to me, and I suspect others feel the same. So I’d love to read a good explanation from someone as experienced as Erika.
On the other hand, maybe the book didn’t need to dedicate seven (rather descriptive) pages to personas. Dunno, maybe it’s just me, and it could be because I’ve not seen many people doing personas by-the-book these days. Maybe a short discussion on personas vs. other tools helping teams to empathize with their target audiences (e.g. empaty maps, user topologies) could have been useful instead.
Anyways, a great book. Highly recommended, especially if you’re just starting out a research programme at your org, or just want a quick refresher on some of the methods and how UX Research fits into the larger whole.
What did you think of the book?
