Here’s a round up of the user research links we’ve come across and bookmarked in March 2016.

Keeping Yourself out of the Story: Controlling Experimenter Effects (UserFocus)

Philip Hodgson takes a look at some subtle yet pervasive experimenter effects, at ways they can bias the outcome of a design experiment, and at what we can do to control their influence.

Read the article on User Focus

Beware the consumer advisory board — instead, always be recruiting (Google Ventures)

“Consumer advisory boards and customer panels have a major downside: stale feedback from people who have become too familiar with your company and your product. Customer research is most valuable when it helps you see the world and your product through your customers’ fresh eyes. Even if you carefully stock an advisory board with “representative customers,” it won’t take long before they’re not.”

Read the article on Google Ventures

Validating Product Ideas Through Lean User Research (UX Matters)

This is a sample chapter from Tomer Sharon’s new book Validating Product Ideas Through Lean User Research. 2016 Rosenfeld Media.

Read the article on UX Matters

Are Your Personas Outdated? Know When It’s Right To Revise (Nielsen Norman Group)

“Up-to-date personas result in a better UX design process. Data from 156 companies provide a baseline to understand how often to revise personas. Knowing when and how frequently to make updates will help you craft personas that are both accurate and effective.”

Read the article on NNG

42% of Mobile Home pages Risk Setting Wrong Expectations for Their Users (Baymard Institute)

During our large-scale mobile e-commerce usability study, we observed that when the test subjects landed on the homepage of a new mobile site, 70% of them scrolled up and down across nearly the entire homepage, quickly scanning its contents. Most described this as “getting an overview of my options”.

Read the article on the Baymard Institute

Sign-up for our email newsletter and get all our posts by email as soon as they’re published.

François Roshdy

François is director of user experience at Border Crossing UX. He specialises in helping clients continuously improve the experiences they deliver.