Re:Ask HN: What are the best books on talking to users?
by skydhash on Thursday April 17, 2025 @11:14PM
(#43724651)
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.
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.