Title: What user researchers can learn from Sherlock Holmes
Context: The world’s greatest detective can teach us a thing or two about understanding end users.
Synopsis: The bane of criminal masterminds and nefarious schemers throughout the whole of Victorian England would have actually made a damned good user researcher had the fancy stricken him. Well, ol’ Sherlock probably would have been better than good at most things had he been so inclined but the user research bit would have been right up his alley. Using empirical data to uncover hidden truths? Check. Creating and testing hypotheses? Check. Delving into the shifting motivations of characters often unaware of their own logical stimulus? Double check. Sherlock used his incisive powers of deduction to solve riddles hidden inside mysteries wrapped in enigmas, not only as a service to those who sought his piercing wisdom, but even more so to scratch his own deductive itch (the man was an addict after all). We call ourselves designers, but if you look at the facts, you’ll find a little bit of Sherlock Holmes in all of us. That’s just elementary.
Best Bit: “It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
via userfocus.co.uk
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