Research should challenge assumptions, not confirm them

We don't validate, we falsify. We are looking to be wrong.

User-centered performance refers to customer obsession or user-centered practice that is symbolic rather than focused on learning. It's work we do to signal to each other how customer obsessed we are, not because we want to make a different decision.

Every time a PM comes to a researcher at the end of a product process and says, 'Can you just run a quick user study just to validate our assumptions,' that's user-centered performance. It's too late to matter.

You want to construct your experiments so that you're in a position to be surprised.

There's nothing better in learning how to solve a problem than trying to solve the problem. You will get all the answers, the research, the failure, the mistakes, all the evidence.