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Whitney Quesenbery

Whitney Quesenberry is on her second career, after accidentally working in the theater for 15 years. She got into theater to get out of a PE requirement, and she got into user experience after being asked to write some technical documentation. Today, she continues to come up with creative methods to research and observe real people interacting with technology. She's interested in what makes people the same and different, and the role storytelling can (and should) play in experience design.

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Excerpts From the Interview

I think if there's one problem that everyone shares, it's how hard it is to keep users in mind, even with personas and all of the tools we have to work with these days. It's hard to keep remembering those people who don't work for your company, who don't come to your meetings, who aren't in your lunchroom - but who are ultimately the reason we all exist."

I'm often struck by hard it is to accept the users' own story of what is happening when they interact with technology. We constantly want to explain their experience in our own technical terms. Especially with people who can use an interface, but don't have a good vocabulary to talk about it. Our understanding can be so much richer if we use stories to enter into their world. I don't mean this in a trite way, or that we should turn every interaction into a fable. Sometimes, instead of talk aloud, I'll ask the person I'm working with to just 'tell me what happened.' that seems to be enough of a trigger to get them to relate the interaction as a narrative."

More About Whitney Quesenbery

Whitney Quesenberry is a solo usability consultant who focuses on user research and strategy with her clients. She thinks and writes about the role of storytelling in user experience design.