user-research

The whole lifecycle of a user-research round, so a round is reproducible from the question, not just from the recordings.

Most research tooling starts at the transcript. By then the expensive mistakes have already been made: the wrong question was asked, of the wrong people, and nobody wrote down what was seen. This skill starts earlier and ends later.

The two gates

Gate 1 — Prior knowledge (Stage 1). Before designing sessions, find out what is already known. Sessions are the most expensive evidence you can produce. Spending them on settled questions, or on questions telemetry answers better, is the most common way research wastes itself.

Gate 2 — Human notes (Stage 5). No synthesis without observer notes. A transcript preserves only what was said, and most of what a session tells you is not said.