HACKER Q&A
📣 terrellbm

What are the best books on talking to users?


Hi HN!

With AI making it easier than ever to create software, it feels more important than ever to understand how to speak to users

That said, I feel like there's a ton of content online on how to build, but far fewer recommendations on how to figure out what users want and what to build that avoids confirmation bias, false signals, etc.

I'm looking for recommendations on insightful books (or other resources) that others have personally found helpful for developing user interviewing skills, framing good questions, and generally becoming better at interacting with real-world users.

What has helped you bridge that gap between the code/AI/product creation side, and actually communicating with users?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions! :)

  👤 skydhash Accepted Answer ✓
There are three main subproblems to your questions:

1. Find out what users wants. The answer to that is research and the only book I have is Just Enough Research by Erika Hall. I also found Essentials of Business Research Methods by Joe Hair Jr. et al.

2. Build the thing that the user wants. That's mostly the real of Software Requirements and I have two candidates for you:

- Mastering the Requirements Process: Getting Requirements Right by Suzanne and James Robertson

- Software Requirements by Karl Wiegers and Joy Beatty.

3. Build something that the user likes and that he can use. That's UX and I have three candidates this time:

- Observing the User Experience, 2nd Edition by E. Goodman and M. Kunlavsky

- Understanding Your Users, 2nd Edition by K. Baxter et al.

- The UX Book by R. Hartson and P. S. Pyla

All of those just emphasize having an objective view of what you want to bring to the users and a rational execution strategy. I haven't read all so I can't judge them, but I believe they will give you enough starting points for you to devise your own method.

👤 kingkongjaffa
Continuous discovery habits by Teresa Torres

https://www.producttalk.org/2021/05/continuous-discovery-hab...

And

The mom test

Are the ones I’ve used the most as a product manager trying to talk to customers every week.

👤 PyWoody
About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design by Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, David Cronin, Christopher Noessel, with Jason Csizmadi and Doug LeMoine extensively covers how to talk with users.
👤 rozenmd
- The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick

- Deploy Empathy by Michele Hansen

- Badass: Making Users Awesome by Kathy Sierra

👤 uticus
"what customers want" Anthony W. Ulwick

https://a.co/d/5UHzfNK (amazon link)

👤 vismit2000
'Design of Everyday Things' to first have sympathy with the users.
👤 tejonutella
“The mom test” maybe?
👤 quocanh34
the mom test actually
👤 scarface_74
The Geek Leader's Handbook: Essential Leadership Insight for People with Technical Backgrounds