Book Sips #5 — ‘Just Enough Research’ by Erika Hall
This is a reference book for research practitioners but it should also be to anyone willing to understand what this is about. You can expect to find a balanced blend of mixed methods, theory vs practice and exhaustive take-home messages. Also, we’re so lucky that the 2nd edition is available since a few months ago!
‘Just Enough Research’ by Erika Hall is not only a step-by-step how-to do research guide but a book which short amount of pages (147) condense a wide range of invaluable tips, convincing arguments and techniques on how to conduct good research. Plus, hell yeah, the most important: it’s fun, really well written and aimed to convince everybody in how research can help us towards succeeding in our project. You’ll always want to be close to this book after reading it, I promise! A sip:
‘You can optimize everything and still fail, because you have to optimize for the right things. That’s where reflection and qualitative approaches come in. By asking why, we can see the opportunity for something better beyond the bounds of the current best. Even math has its limits.’
In research, like in life, there’s nothing talking can’t fix.
#joshdixit
Just Enough Research
by Erika Hall
Why read?
Is user research really THAT important for your product/service? Why should I spend a relatively big amount of time, effort and even money (!) to learn about user’s reactions towards my product/service? Does just showing the product/service to my sister count as enough research?
147 pages, A Book Apart 2013
