USERPALOOZA - A Field Researcher's Guide: ... because it's easier to design for a customer you understand.

...because it's easier to design for a customer you understand."This book marries industry-leading design strategy with hard-won practical experience delivering actionable fieldwork. Whether you’re just starting out with field research or an experienced anthropologist - USERPALOOZA will inspire you to find the next level of your research craft."
Andrew Harder, Director of Design Research & Strategy, eBay

Today’s brands aspire to be user-centred, they talk of ‘putting the customer at the centre of everything we do’. This book shows you how to do the opposite. To put yourself at the centre of everything the customer does.

Nick Bowmast's USERPALOOZA is a guide to conducting field research, to meet your customer, understand who they are, how they think and what they do, to bring their voices, experiences and realities to bear on the way your brand brings its product or service into their world.

This book is for you if...

• you want to understand your customer – for yourself, your clients or your internal teams.
• you work in the trenches of brand, marketing, or design – physical or digital – and want to understand how people think, feel and behave around your product or service.
• your team or clients are insight-starved and looking to fuel their decisions about what really matters to customers, by meeting them in their world.

What you’ll learn:

• How to think about, plan and conduct successful field research to inform design projects.
• How to gain insight and understanding by connecting with your customer, either visiting them in their home or context.
• Who to talk to, how to choose and find them
• Priming yourself and your team for a high value immersive experience
• Capturing moments that matter with notes, images and audio
• Interview techniques and tools to open your senses and your customers’ world
• Making sense of your data
• Shaping and sharing your insights for engaging, lasting impact.

Nick is an internationally recognised design researcher whose 25-year design career spans industrial, digital and architectural design. Research and design collided for Nick in London while working as a consultant for user experience and behavioural-research agencies. Nick now works from New Zealand as an independent design researcher for local and international clients, applying his instinct for finding out what makes people tick to shape products, services, brands and environments both physical and digital.

More praise for USERPALOOZA:

“This is a terrific practical guide to doing empathy work with your customers. If you are in any business that delivers a product or service to any customer you will find the book useful. Nick brings a sense of humor to this as well as a wealth of experience.”
Perry Klebahn Adjunct Professor Stanford University d.school

“USERPALOOZA is one of those genuinely useful books. It offers practical advice that never loses sight of the fact that our users are always first and foremost human beings. Add it your reading list and your book shelf.”
Genevieve Bell. Anthropologist, futurist & Intel Sr Fellow

“Nick captures the reality of field research with a rare sensitivity. USERPALOOZA skips the ‘why’ to make more space for a fantastic, jargon-free, practical guide to anyone starting out in what we call user research. Genius.”
David Whittle. VP Product Insights – Spotify.